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XECTIC  ENGLISH  CLASSICS 


5>&s^ssos^3sosiS^>e5S>e5Ei©«2e^ie^iSis» 


THE  LIFE 


OF 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON 


BY 


LORD   MACAU  LAY 


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AMERICAN   •   BOOK  •   COMPANY 
NEW  YORK-  CINCINNATI  •  CHICAGO 


Qtis>\%  Wn^. 


ECLECTIC   ENGLISH   CLASSICS 


THE  LIFE 


OF 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON 


BY 

LORD   MACAULAY 


.       *      - 


NEW  YORK  •:•  CINCINNATI  •:•  CHICAGO 

AMERICAN    BOOK    COMPANY 


Copvrigh'       ',5,  by 
American   Book  Company 

LIFE   OF  JOHNSOK. 

W.   P.   2 


n 


■ 


INTRODUCTION. 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay,  the  most  popular  essayist  of 
his  time,  was  born  at  Leicestershire,  Eng.,  in  1800.  His  father, 
Zachary  Macaulay,  a  friend  and  coworker  of  Wilberforc^e,  was  a 
man  ">f  austere  character,  who  was  greatly  shocked  at  his  son's 
fondness  ">r  worldly  literature.  Macaulay's  mother,  however, 
encouraged  his  reading,  and  did  much  to  foster  m*?(  -erary  tastes. 
"  From  the  time  that  he  was  three,"  says  Trevelyan  in  his  stand- 
r_     ard  biography,  "  Macaulay  read  incessantly,  for  the  most  part 

CO 

£2  lying  on  the  rug  before  the  fire,  with  his  book  on  the  ground  and  a 
piece  of  bread  and  butter  in  his  hand."  He  early  showed  marks 
^  of  uncommon  genius.  When  he  was  only  seven,  he  took  it  into 
—i  his  head  to  write  a  "  Compendium  of  Universal  History."  He 
could  remember  almost  the  exact  phraseology  of  the  books  he 
rea'd,  and  had  Scott's  "  Marmion  "  almost  entirely  by  heart.  His 
omnivorous  reading  and  extraordinary  memory  bore  ample  fruit 
in  the  richness  of  allusion  and  brilliancy  of  illustration  that  marked 
the  literary  style  of  his  mature  years.  He  could  have  written  "  Sir 
Charles  Grandison  "  from  memory,  and  in  1849  he  could  repeat 
more  than  half  of  "  Paradise  Lost." 

In  1 81 8  Macaulay  entered  Trinity  College,  Cambridge.  Here 
he  won  prizes  in  classics  and  English  ;  but  he  had  an  invincible 
distaste  for  mathematics. 

270090 


b  INTRODUCTION. 

His  "  Essay  on  Milton,"  published  in  the  "  Edinburgh  Review  " 
in  1825,  made  him  famous;  and  his  subsequent  contributions  to 
that  magazine,  written  in  all  the  vigor  of  his  early  years,  were 
eagerly  and  widely  read.  Among  the  best  of  his  essays  are  those 
on  "  Clive,"  "  Warren  Hastings,"  "  Frederick  the  Great,"  "  Addi- 
son," "  Bunyan,"  and  "  Comic  Dramatists  of  the  Restoration." 

Macaulay  possessed  great  versatility,  and  made  a  reputation 
not  only  as  an  essayist,  but  also  as  a  statesman,  orator,  poet,  and 
historian.  Known  -as  a  stanch  Whig,  he  entered  Parliament  in 
1830,  where  his  speeches  on  the  Reform  Bill  placed  him  among 
the  foremost  orators  of  the  day.  He  had,  however,  none  of  the 
outward  graces*of  the  orator.  He  spoke  rapidly,  and  with  but 
little  emphasis.  Yet  Gladstone,  who  sat  in  Parliament  with  him, 
says,  "  Whenever  he  rose  to  speak,  it  was  a  summons  like  a  trum- 
pet call  to  fill  the  benches." 

Many  high  political  honors  signalized  Macaulay's  prosperity. 
As  member  of  the  Supreme  Council  of  India  (1834-38),  he  did 
yeoman  service  for  the  cause  of  education  and  judicial  reform. 
After  his  return  from  India,  he  became  once  more  a  member  of 
Parliament,  and  held  the  office  of  secretary  of  war  in  the  Mel- 
bourne ministry.  Throughout  his  public  career,  he  maintained 
his  reputation  as  a  true,  courageous,  and  upright  man.  Devoted 
as  he  was  to  literary  studies,  he  never  for  a  moment  allowed  them 
to  interfere  with  his  official  obligations,  or,  in  fact,  with  any  of 
the  practical  duties  of  life. 

Macaulay's  "  colloquial  talents,"  to  quote  his  language  con- 
cerning Johnson,  "were  of  the  highest  order."  He  was  a  fluent 
and  fascinating  talker,  but  generally  assumed  the  lion's  share  of 
conversation. 

One  of  the  most  winning  things  about  Macaulay  was  his  love  of 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

children,  with  whom  he  had  the  utmost  sympathy.  The  follow- 
ing is  an  extract  from  his  diary,  relating  to  a  gorgeous  valentine 
he  had  sent  to  his  little  niece  Alice:  "Alice  was  in  perfect  rap- 
tures over  her  valentine.  She  begged  quite  pathetically  to  be  told 
the  truth  about  it.  When  we  were  alone  together,  she  said,  '  I  am 
going  to  be  very  serious.'  Down  she  fell  before  me  on  her  knees 
and  lifted  up  her  hands.  '  Dear  uncle,  do  tell  the  truth  to  your 
little  girl.  Did  you  send  the  valentine?  '  I  did  not  choose  to  tell 
a  real  lie  to  a  child  even  about  such  a  trifle,  and  so  I  owned  it." 

In  1857  Macaulay  was  raised  to  the  peerage  as  Baron  Macaulay 
of  Rothley,  but  lived  to  enjoy  the  honor  a  short  time  only.  He 
died  suddenly  and  peacefully  on  the  28th  of  December,  1859. 

Macaulay's  fame  as  a  poet  rests  on  those  specimens  of  stirring 
verse, "  Ivry  "  and  "  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,"  which  "  every  school- 
boy knows."  His  prose  masterpiece,  however,  is  the  "  History 
of  England  from  the  Accession  of  James  II.,"  the  first  two  vol- 
umes of  which  appeared  in  1848.  It  was  a  labor  of  love,  written 
in  his  more  comfortable  years,  after  the  competency  derived 
from  his  Indian  office  had  made  possible  for  him  a  purely  liter- 
ary life.  It  is  original  in  treatment,  and  has  all  the  charm  of  a 
fascinating  novel. 

Macaulay's  "  style  "  was  unquestionably  "  the  man."  He  had 
strong  likes  and  dislikes,  and  positive  convictions.  Like  Dr.  John- 
son, he  never  halted  at  halfway  judgments,  nor  wore  his  opinions 
"  on  both  sides,  like  a  leather  jerkin."  Naturally,  therefore,  his 
language,  impetuous  and  sanguine,  is  instinct  with  force  and 
energy.  Of  a  practical  turn  of  mind,  he  saw  clearly,  and  wrote 
clearly.  Among  the  features  of  his  celebrated  style  are  the  fre- 
quent use  of  antithesis  and  epigram  to  make  one  idea  set  off 
another,  his  fondness  for  the  short  sentence,  his  overflowing  his- 


8  INTRODUCTION. 

torical  and  literary  allusions,  his  mastery  of  paragraph  structure, 
and  his  rapid  and  picturesque  grouping  of  details.  His  pictorial 
method  popularized  literary  criticism,  and  kindled  a  great  and 
permanent  interest  in  English  history  and  English  literature. 
His  essay  on  "  Bunyan "  set  thousands  re-reading  "Pilgrim's 
Progress."  Whatever  his  faults  may  be,  though  he  sometimes 
exaggerates  or  overstates  his  case,  nevertheless,  in  the  stimulat- 
ing earnestness  of  his  style,  in  his  narrative  power  as  an  historian, 
in  his  originality  and  brilliancy  as  an  historical  essayist,  he  ranks 
with  the  masters  of  English  prose. 

Macaulay  contributed  his  "  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson"  to  the 
"Encyclopedia  Britannica  "  in  1856.  Twenty-five  years  earlier 
he  had  published  in  the  "  Edinburgh  Review  "  a  critical  essay  on 
Croker's  edition  of  Boswell's  Johnson.  No  extended  contrast 
or  parallel  between  these  two  articles  of  Macaulay  need  here  be 
drawn.  However,  the  harsher  judgments  contained  in  the  essay 
are  toned  down  in  the  "  Life ;"  and  generally,  in  the  treatment  of 
Johnson,  the  "Life"  breathes  a  more  tolerant  and  sympathetic 
spirit  than  does  the  article  of  1831,  which  was,  in  fact,  largely 
inspired  by  Macaulay's  burning  desire  to  expose  the  editorial 
blunders  of  his  personal  foe,  Croker.  The  present  "  Life,"  more- 
over,— written  at  the  culmination  of  Macaulay's  powers  and  in  the 
maturity  of  his  style, — shows  the  brilliant  essayist  at  his  best.  He 
has  been  taxed,  however,  with  party  bias  and  with  inappreciation 
of  the  deeper  elements  of  Johnson's  character.  Matthew  Arnold, 
on  the  other  hand,  maintains  that  Macaulay,  strong  Whig  though 
he  was,  had  preeminent  qualification,  not  only  by  virtue  of  his 
literary  equipment,  but  also  by  many  points  of  sympathetic  re- 
semblance to  the  Tory  subject  of  his  narrative,  to  deal  with  the 
theme  of  the  great  literary  dictator  of  the  eighteenth  century. 


INTRODUCTION.  9 

In  the  "  Life,"  as  in  the  essay,  Macaulay  holds  up  to  ridicule 
and  scorn  the  character  of  Boswell,  whose  faults,  like  those  of 
Cassius,  seem  to  have  been  set  in  a  notebook,  conned,  and  learned 
by  rote.  His  review  of  Boswell,  however,  is  critical  rather  than 
biographical ;  and  as  the  name  and  fame  of  "  the  painter  "  have 
become  so  closely  linked  with  those  of  "  the  subject  of  the  por- 
trait," some  brief  summary  of  Boswell's  life  is  appropriate  here. 

James  Boswell  (1740-95),  born  at  Edinburgh,  was  the  eldest 
son  of  Lord  Auchinleck,  a  Scottish  judge.  He  studied  at  Glas- 
gow and  Utrecht,  and  traveled  extensively  on  the  Continent.  In 
Corsica  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Pasquale  Paoli,  the  leader 
of  the  revolt  against  Genoa,  and,  returning  to  England  (1766), 
he  posed  as  the  champion  of  Corsican  independence.  Two  years 
later  he  published  his  "  Account  of  Corsica."  He  was  admitted 
to  the  Scottish  bar  (1766),  but  never  applied  himself  earnestly  to 
the  practice  of  his  profession.  He  married  his  cousin,  Margaret 
Montgomerie,  in  1769. 

Boswell's  personality  has  made  him  one  of  the  most  amusing 
figures  in  English  literary  history.  In  his  article  of  1831,  Macau- 
lay  says,  "  Boswell  was  one  of  the  smallest  men  that  ever  lived. 
...  He  was  the  laughingstock  of  the  whole  of  that  brilliant  soci- 
ety which  has  owed  to  him  the  greater  part  of  its  fame.  He  was 
always  laying  himself  at  the  feet  of  some  eminent  man,  and  beg- 
ging to  be  spit  upon  and  trampled  upon.  ...  He  exhibited  him- 
self at  the  Shakespeare  Jubilee  (1 769)  to  all  the  crowd  which  filled 
Stratford-on-Avon,  with  a  placard  round  his  hat  bearing  the  in- 
scription of  '  Corsica  Boswell.'  .  .  .  Servile  and  impertinent,  shal- 
low and  pedantic,  a  bigot  and  a  sot,  bloated  with  family  pride, 
and  eternally  blustering  about  the  dignity  of  a.  born  gentleman, 


io  INTRODUCTION. 

yet  stooping  to  be  a  talebearer,  an  eavesdropper,  a  common  butt 
in  the  taverns  of  London,  so  curious  to  know  everybody  who 
was  talked  about,  that,  Tory  and  High-churchman  as  he  was,  he 
maneuvered  .  .  .  for  an  introduction  to  Tom  Paine — so  vain  of 
the  most  childish  distinctions,  that,  when  he  had  been  to  court, 
he  drove  to  the  office  where  his  book  was  printing,  without  chan- 
ging his  clothes,  and  summoned  all  the  printer's  devils  to  admire 
his  new  ruffles  and  sword." 

Carlyle,  in  his  essay  on  Johnson  (1832),  defended  Boswell  from 
the  strictures  of  Macaulay.  Indeed,  what  Macaulay  stigmatizes 
as  sycophancy,  Carlyle  deems  a  natural  and  honorable  "hero 
worship  "  of  Johnson. 

It  was  in  1763,  in  the  back  parlor  of  Tom  Davies,  a  London 
bookseller,  that  Boswell  first  met  his  hero.  Johnson  unexpectedly 
came  into  the  shop.  Davies,  seeing  him  through  the  glass  door, 
announced  his  approach  to  Boswell  nearly  in  the  words  of  Hora- 
tio to  Hamlet:  "  Look,  my  lord!  it  comes;"  and  then  and  there 
the  agitated  Boswell  was  introduced  to  the  "monarch  of  litera- 
ture." "  Recollecting  Johnson's  prejudice  against  the  Scotch," 
writes  Boswell,  "  I  said  to  Davies,  '  Don't  tell  where  I  come  from! ' 
— '  From  Scotland,'  cried  Davies  roguishly.  '  Mr.  Johnson,'  said 
I,  '  I  do  indeed  come  from  Scotland,  but  I  cannot  help  it.'  He 
retorted,  'That,  sir,  I  find,  is  what  a  very  great  many  of  your 
countrymen  cannot  help.'    The  stroke  stunned  me  a  good  deal." 

In  this  way  did  Brobdingnag  and  Lilliput  meet;  and  how  this 
casual  acquaintance  ripened  into  the  closest  intimacy  is  known  to 
all.  Boswell  "  is  only  a  bur,"  said  Goldsmith,  "  flung  at  Johnson 
in  sport,  and  he  has  the  faculty  of  sticking." 

BoswelPs  microscopic  observation  of  his  hero  has  been  vividly 
described  by  Leslie  Stephen  :   "  When  Johnson  spoke,  Boswell's 


INTRODUCTION.  1 1 

eyes  goggled  with  eagerness ;  he  leant  his  ear  almost  on  the 
doctor's  shoulders ;  his  mouth  dropped  open  to  catch  every  syl- 
lable;  and  he  seemed  to  listen  even  to  Johnson's  breathings,  as 
though  they  had  some  mystical  significance." 

In  the  painting  of  details,  BoswelPs  prying  curiosity  stood  him 
in  good  stead.  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  probably,  was  not  more  pro- 
foundly absorbed  in  his  theory  of  gravitation  than  was  "Bozzy," 
for  the  time  being,  in  trying  to  ascertain  (alas!  in  vain)  the  mys- 
terious reasons  that  prompted  Dr.  Johnson  to  treasure  up  the 
orange  peel,  and  refuse  to  wear  a  nightcap. 

Vain  and  inquisitive  as  Boswell  was,  his  perfect  frankness  and 
imperturbable  good  nature  won  him  a  welcome.  Johnson  called 
him  "  the  best  traveling  companion  in  the  world  ;  "  and  the  sage 
had  an  opportunity  to  test  the  amiable  qualities  of  his  faithful 
Achates  during  their  famous  tour  of  Scotland  and  the  Hebrides 
(1773).     Boswell  published  an  account  of  this  journey  in  1785. 

Boswell's  masterpiece,  "The  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson,  LL.D.," 
appeared  in  1791.  Regarding  the  literary  and  artistic  merits  of 
this  famous  work,  the  weight  of  modern  opinion  is,  that  the  biog- 
rapher did  not  stumble  upon  his  success  by  accident,  but  reaped 
it  as  the  just  reward  of  his  systematic  methods  and  unflagging 
zeal.  He  was  uncrushable.  "  Sir,"  said  Johnson  to  him  on  one 
occasion,  "  you  have  but  two  subjects,  yourself  and  me.  I  am 
sick  of  both."  Boswell,  pocketing  the  rebuke,  hid  his  diminished 
head,  but  continued  none  the  less  to  gather  his  material  for  the 
biography,  in  which  he  has  painted  so  vividly,  not  only  the  life 
of  Johnson,  but  the  life  and  manners  of  Johnson's  time. 

The  main  incidents  of  Johnson's  career,  grouped  as  they  are  by 
the  masterly  hand  of  Macaulay,  need  no  further  portrayal.     The 


12  INTRODUCTION. 

characteristics  of  Johnson,  however,  his  place  in  literature,  and 
his  relation  to  his  age,  are  here  reviewed. 

The  thought  and  action  of  any  period  of  history  are  necessa- 
rily closely  allied ;  and  only  by  the  light  of  the  times  in  which  the 
famous  dictionary  maker  lived  can  his  prejudices  and  opinions 
be  read  aright.  Accordingly  one  must  place  himself  as  far  as 
possible  amid  Johnson's  surroundings,  with  a  sympathetic  sense, 
moreover,  of  the  literary  and  social  conditions  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  of  which,  in  many  ways,  the  sage  of  Bolt  Court  was  a 
vigorous  embodiment. 

In  its  social  aspects  Johnson's  age  was  rough  and  unrefined. 
The  prevailing  coarseness  of  fashionable  life  is  mirrored  in  the 
novels  of  Fielding  and  Smollett.  The  works  of  the  shameless 
Aphra  Behn  were  found  on  the  toilet  tables  of  the  Belindas  and 
Flirtillas  of  the  day.  Under  the  first  two  Georges,  the  passion 
for  gambling  reached  its  climax,  fashionable  ladies  often  playing 
for  the  highest  stakes.  "  Beau  Nash,"  the  "  King  of  Bath," 
where  he  presided  in  the  famous  pump  room,  was  a  professional 
gambler.  "  Even  wise  old  Johnson  regretted  that  he  had  never 
learned  to  play  cards."  The  immorality  of  the  court  (up  to  the 
reign  of  George  III.)  was  notorious;  while  the  amusements  of 
the  populace  were  brutal  in  the  extreme.  The  newspapers  of 
1730  contain  an  advertisement  of  "a  mad  bull,  dressed  up  with 
fireworks,  to  be  baited." 

It  was  a  time  when  men  lived  hard,  and  fought  hard.  In  the 
field  of  debate  and  discussion,  no  quarter  was  given  nor  taken. 
The  burly  assertiveness  and  dogged  courage  that  made  Walpole 
premier  were  the  prime  requisites  of  the  day.  Of  such  a  time, 
therefore,  an  aggressive  and  rugged  character  like  Johnson  is 
in  no  small  measure  typical.     The  age  might  trample  upon  the 


INTROD  UCTION.  I 3 

fastidious  and  delicate  Gray ;  but  it  could  not  trample  upon  the 
rough-and-ready  dictionary  maker,  who  was  famed  as  a  hard  hit- 
ter in  debate,  and  who  on  one  memorable  occasion  had  knocked 
down  a  bookseller,  one  of  the  ogres  of  London,  for  his  intoler- 
able insolence.  Few  men,  indeed,  had  the  temerity  to  contend 
with  Johnson.  "  There  is  no  arguing  with  him,"  said  Goldsmith  ; 
"  for,  if  his  pistol  misses  fire,  he  knocks  you  down  with  the  butt 
of  it." 

The  coarseness  of  the  age,  however,  but  brings  into  stronger 
relief  the  high  moral  tone  of  Johnson's  character;  nor  did  the 
prevalent  skepticism  of  the  early  eighteenth  century  shake  his  firm 
and  abiding  religious  faith. 

Under  the  first  two  Georges,  literature  had  a  cheerless  pros- 
pect. Walpole,  famed  as  the  Sir  Visto  of  Pope  and  the  Flimnap 
of  Swift,  despised  reading  ;  while  George  II.,  invoked  as  "  Augus- 
tus "  by  poetical  flattery,  grew  furious  at  the  sight  of  a  printed 
volume,  and  wasted  little  love  on  what  he  called  "  boetry  "  and 
"  bainting."  Patronage  there  was,  to  be  sure,  for  political  scrib- 
blers like  Arnall,  of  whom  the  author  of  the  "  Dunciad"  wrote  :  — 

"  Spirit  of  Arnall,  aid  me  whilst  I  lie." 

But  the  royal  favor  did  little  to  foster  a  genuine  love  of  letters. 

Yet  the  years  of  Johnson's  life  (especially  the  first  sixty  years) 
belong  to  an  era  highly  creative  in  English  prose.  In  those 
memorable  years  appeared  "Gulliver's  Travels"  (1729),  with  its 
pointed  satire  on  the  times  of  George  I. ;  *'  Pamela"  (1741),  the 
first  English  domestic  novel  in  the  modern  sense ;  Fielding's 
'Tom  Jones"  (1749);  Smollett's  delineations  of  the  British  tar, 
like  Commodore  Trunnion  and  Tom  Bowling  ;  Sterne's  delightful 
creations  of  Uncle  Toby  and  Corporal  Trim  in  "Tristram  Shandy" 


1 4  1NTR  OD  UC  TION. 

(1760);  Goldsmith's  immortal  "Vicar  of  Wakefield;"  the  histo- 
ries of  Hume  and  Robertson,  and  a  portion  of  Gibbon's  "Roman 
Empire;"  the  "Wealth  of  Nations"  (1776),  that  ranks  "among 
the  greatest  of  books  ;"  and  the  magnificent  speeches  of  Edmund 
Burke. 

Johnson's  connection  with  the  production  of  Goldsmith's  classic 
is  a  memorable  incident  in  English  literary  history.  One  day 
(1764)  "  Goldy,"  as  Johnson  loved  to  call  him,  was  arrested  by 
his  landlady  for  debt.  Johnson,  learning  of  his  friend's  sorry  pre- 
dicament, sent  him  a  guinea,  and  then  hastily  proceeded  to  Gold- 
smith's lodgings.  There  he  found  that  the  guinea  had  been  spent 
for  a  bottle  of  Madeira,  in  which  his  prodigal  friend  was  drown- 
ing his  sorrows.  Without  a  word,  Johnson  solemnly  corked  the 
bottle,  and  locked  it  up.  Then  Goldsmith  pulled  from  a  drawer 
the  manuscript  of  the  "  Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  which  Johnson,  after 
examination,  took  to  a  bookseller's  (with  whom  he  was  influen- 
tial), and  sold  for  sixty  pounds;  and  in  this  way  was  "Goldy" 
kept  from  the  terrors  of  "  the  sponging  house,"  and  the  story  of 
Dr.  Primrose  launched  on  its  long  career  of  popularity. 

Some  influences  of  Johnson's  age  are  plainly  discernible  in  his 
literary  style.  The  pompous  Anglo-Latin  diction  of  the  "  Ram- 
bler" expresses  the  renewed  fondness  for  classical  learning  in  his 
time,  and  the  reaction  in  English  prose  against  the  simplicity  of 
Addison.  The  faults  of  Johnson's  early  style  (Johnsonese)  are 
attributable  in  general  to  "  a  use  of  too  big  words,  and  too  many 
of  them,"  and  in  particular  to  an  extravagant  use  of  Latin  de- 
rivatives and  abstract  terms ;  he  employs  antitheses  even  "  when 
there  is  no  opposition  in  the  ideas  expressed."  The  style  of  the 
"Rambler,"  however,  differs  much  from  that  of  his  later  years. 
The  language  of  the  "  Lives  of  the  Poets  "  (1777-81)  is  compara- 


INTRODUCTION.  i  5 

tively  simple,  and  his  conversation  was  racy  with   the   plainest 
Anglo-Saxon. 

If,  however,  Johnson's  age  was  rich  in  proj^  it  was  poor  in 
poetry.  The  "  monarch  of  literature  "  lived  between  the  Augus- 
tan age  and  the  Victorian  era.  In  his  day  the  influences  of  the 
classical  or  Queen  Anne  school  of  poets  were  still  predominant. 
There  was  no  Wordsworth  (i  770-1850)  to  interpret  Nature  in  her 
every  word,  or  to  sing  "the  still,  sad  music  of  humanity;"  and 
so,  as  a  rule,  the  early  Georgian  poetry  is  satirical  or  didactic. 
Johnson's  "Vanity  of  Human  Wishes"  (1749)  is  written  in  the 
style  of  Pope ;  and  he,  moreover,  only  expressed  the  Augustan 
taste  of  the  time  in  his  bluntly  avowed  preference  for  Charing 
Cross  and  Fleet  Street  to  all  the  beauties  of  nature. 

Conservative  as  he  was,  then,  Johnson  had  no  appreciative 
sense  of  the  coming  revolution  in  English  poetry,  — the  revolution 
that  found  an  early  expression  in  the  poems  of  some  of  his  con- 
temporaries, "The  Seasons"  of  Thomson,  descriptive  of  natural 
scenery,  and  in  the  odes  of  Collins  and  Gray.  Consequently, 
many  of  Johnson's  literary  judgments  have  been  reversed  in  the 
present  century. 

Among  the  conspicuous  examples  of  his  mistaken  criticism  are 
the  condemnatory  opinions  of  Milton  and  Gray.  The  diction 
of  Milton's  "  Lycidas  "  he  deemed  harsh,  and  the  numbers  un- 
pleasing,  while  he  styled  Gray  "  a  barren  rascal."  Yet  in  general 
Johnson  bestowed  high  praise  on  the  Puritan  poet,  and  he  did 
full  justice  to  the  best  stanzas  of  Gray's  "  Elegy." 

Johnson's  place  in  literature  is  unique.  He  is  best  remembered 
by  the  story  of  his  life  and  conversation.  His  wit  and  wisdom, 
preserved  not  only  by  Boswell,  but  also  in  the  "  Johnsoniana  "  of 
Mrs.  Thrale  (Piozzi),  Tyers,  Cradock,  Madame  d'Arblay,  Hannah 


1 6  IN  TROD  UC  TION. 

More,  and  others,  fill  many  entertaining  and  instructive  pages. 
Ben  Jonson,  in  his  day  and  generation,  had  been  a  literary  power ; 
Dryden  had  had  his  throne,  and  Addison  ("  Atticus"),  his  "sen- 
ate ;  "  but  no  other  man  ever  reigned  supreme  in  the  world  of 
letters  as  did  Dr.  Johnson  in  the  fullness  of  his  fame.  Long  will 
the  sage  linger  in  our  memories  as  the  central  figure  in  the  intel- 
lectual combats  and  passages  at  arms  associated  with  the  names 
of  the  Literary  Club  and  the  Mitre  Tavern. 

Courage  has  been  called  the  key  to  Johnson's  character.  His 
characteristic  letter  to  the  mighty  Chesterfield  is  often  quoted. 
Chesterfield,  after  long  withholding  his  patronage  from  the  strug- 
gling lexicographer,  angled  for  the  "  Dedication  "  when  the  dic- 
tionary was  coming  out,  and  tried  to  smooth  over  Johnson's 
long-cherished  resentment  by  graceful  compliments. 

"  I  have  been  lately  informed  by  the  proprietor  of  the  '  World,'  " 
writes  Johnson,  "  that  two  papers  in  which  my  dictionary  is  recom- 
mended to  the  public  were  written  by  your  lordship.  To  be  so 
distinguished  is  an  honor  which,  being  very  little  accustomed  to 
favors  from  the  great,  I  know  not  well  how  to  receive,  or  in  what 
terms  to  acknowledge. 

"  When,  upon  some  slight  encouragement,  I  first  visited  your 
lordship,  I  was  overpowered,  like  the  rest  of  mankind,  by  the  en- 
chantment of  your  address,  and  could  not  forbear  to  wish  that 
I  might  boast  myself  le  vainqueur  du  vainqueur  de  la  terre?  that  I 
might  obtain  that  regard  for  which  I  saw  the  world  contending ; 
but  I  found  my  attendance  so  little  encouraged,  that  neither  pride 
nor  modesty  would  suffer  me  to  continue  it.  When  I  had  once 
addressed  your  lordship  in  public,  I  had  exhausted  all  the  arts  of 
pleasing  which  a  retired  and  uncourtly  scholar  can  possess.     I 

1  The  conqueror  of  the  conqueror  of  the  earth. 


INTRODUCTION.  17 

had  done  all  that  I  could  ;  and  no  man  is  well  pleased  to  have  his 
all  neglected,  be  it  ever  so  little. 

"  Seven  years,  my  lord,  have  now  passed  since  I  waited  in  your 
outward  rooms,,  or  was  repulsed  from  your  door ;  during  which 
time  I  have  been  pushing  on  my  work  through  difficulties  of 
which  it  is  useless  to  complain,  and  have  brought  it  at  last  to  the 
verge  of  publication,  without  one  act  of  assistance,  one  word  of 
encouragement,  or  one  smile  of  favor.  Such  treatment  I  did  not 
expect,  for  I  never  had  a  patron  before. 

"The  shepherd  in  Virgil  grew  at  last  acquainted  with  Love, 
and  found  him  a  native  of  the  rocks. 

"  Is  not  a  patron,  my  lord,  one  who  looks  with  unconcern  on 
a  man  struggling  for  life  in  the  water,  and  when  he  has  reached 
ground  encumbers  him  with  help?  The  notice  which  you  have 
been  pleased  to  take  of  my  labors,  had  it  been  early,  had  been 
kind  ;  but  it  has  been  delayed  till  I  am  indifferent,  and  cannot 
enjoy  it ;  till  I  am  solitary,  and  cannot  impart  it ;  till  I  am  known, 
and  do  not  want  it.  I  hope  it  is  no  very  cynical  asperity  not  to 
confess  obligations  where  no  benefit  has  been  received,  or  to  be 
unwilling  that  the  public  should  consider  me  as  owing  that  to  a 
patron  which  Providence  has  enabled  me  to  do  for  myself." 

This  famous  letter  dealt  "  patronage  "  a  fatal  blow. 

Johnson's  prejudices  are  far-famed.  Yet  "that  Jacobitism, 
Church  of  Englandism,  hatred  of  the  Scotch,  belief  in  witches, 
and  such  like,  — what  were  they  but  the  ordinary  beliefs  of  well- 
doing, well-meaning  provincial  Englishmen  in  his  day  ?  "  He 
was  called  a  "good  hater;"  but  he  lived  in  an  era  of  "good 
haters."  In  the  earlier  years  of  his  life,  to  be  sure,  a  spirit  of 
apathy  or  cold  indifference,  akin  to  the  studied  avoidance  of  the 
emotional  in  Augustan  literature,  had  characterized  political  and 
2 


1 8  IN  TROD  UC  TION. 

religious  thought ;  but  there  succeeded  a  period  of  intense  ear- 
nestness in  national  life, — the  days  of  Pitt  and  Clive,  Wesley  and 
Whitefield.  "  Never  before,"  writes  Qreen,  in  commenting  upon 
the  year  1759,  "had  England  played  so  great  a  .part  in  the  his- 
tory of  mankind."  Peace,  moreover,  as  well  as  war,  had  its 
famous  victories;  and  the  Methodist  revival  "changed  after  a 
while  the  whole  tone  of  English  society." 

Johnson,  then,  represents  the  conservative  side  of  his  century. 
The  political  corruption  under  the  Whigs,  and  the  parliamentary 
bribery  rampant  during  the  leadership  of  Walpole,  naturally  tended 
to  confirm  Johnson's  inherited  Tory  principles  ;  nor  is  it  surpris- 
ing that  he  could  not  adjust  the  opinions  and  sympathies  of  his 
old  age  to  more  liberal  tendencies  or  progressive  movements. 

Of  Whitefield's  stirring  eloquence  he  said,  "  His  popularity  is 
chiefly  owing  to  the  peculiarity  of  his  manner.  He  would  be  fol- 
lowed by  crowds,  were  he  to  wear  a  nightcap  in  the  pulpit,  or 
were  he  to  preach  from  a  tree." 

Johnson,  however,  outlived  many  of  his  prejudices.  His 
hatred  of  the  Scotch  became  a  mere  joke  ;  and  some  of  his  closest 
intimates  were  "  Whig  dogs."  The  stout  old  Tory  even  conde- 
scended once  to  dine  with  Jack  Wilkes,  that  notorious  profligate, 
demagogue,  and  infidel. 

Johnson  was  a  "clubable"  man  ;  and  his  characterization  of  a 
tavern  chair  as  the  throne  of  human  felicity  signified  his  enjoy- 
ment of  intellectual  companionship,  with  "its  feast  of  reason  and 
flow  of  soul."  As  Garrick  put  it,  Johnson  "  fairly  shook  laugh- 
ter out  of  you."  He  enjoyed  romping  games ;  and  it  must  have 
been  rare  sport  to  see  the  big-bodied  philosopher,  in  his  moments 
of  recreation,  playing  hop,  step,  and  jump,  in  which  game  he  was 
reputed  to  be  expert. 


INTRODUCTION.  19 

In  figure  Johnson  was  tall  and  well-formed.  He  possessed  great 
physical  strength ;  and  many  instances  of  his  fearlessness  are  re- 
corded. Thackeray  pictures  him  as  "  that  great,  awkward,  pock- 
marked, snuff-colored  man,  swaying  to  and  fro  as  he  walks." 

He  generally  wore  a  suit  of  plain  brown  clothes,  with  twisted 
hair  buttons  of  the  same  color,  a  large,  bushy,  grayish  wig,  and 
black  worsted  stockings.  Upon  his  tour  in  Scotland  he  wore  a 
wide  greatcoat,  with  pockets  in  it  almost  big  enough  to  hold  the 
two  volumes  of  his  folio  dictionary.  In  his  time,  men  of  rank  and 
fashion  displayed  the  most  gorgeous  attire.  "  Goldy's  "  absorb- 
ing passion  for  brilliant  waistcoats  is  well  known.  Wilkes  gener- 
ally arrayed  himself  in  a  scarlet  or  green  suit  edged  with  gold. 
Johnson  himself,  in  his  later  years,  became  more  careful  in  his 
dress,  and,  yielding  to  the  persuasive  influences  of  Mrs.  Thrale, 
adorned  his  coat  with  metal  buttons,  and  his  shoes  with  silver 
buckles. 

The  life  of  Samuel  Johnson  was  "  the  victorious  battle  of  a  free, 
true  man."  His  name  is  likely  to  be  remembered  "  as  long  as 
the  English  language  is  spoken  in  any  quarter  of  the  globe." 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON. 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON,  one  of  the  most  eminent  English  writ- 
ers of  the  eighteenth  century,  was  the  son  of  Michael  John- 
son, who  was,  at  the  beginning  of  that  century,  a  magistrate  of 
Lichfield,  and  a  bookseller  of  great  note  in  the  midland  counties. 
Michael's  abilities  and  attainments  seem  to  have  been  consid- 
erable. He  was  so  well  acquainted  with  the  contents  of  the 
volumes  which  he  exposed  to  sale,  that  the  country  rectors  of 
Staffordshire  and  Worcestershire  thought  him  an  oracle  on  points 
of  learning.  Between  him  and  the  clergy,  indeed,  there  was  a 
strong  religious  and  political  sympathy.  He  was  a  zealous 
churchman,  and,  though  he  had  qualified  himself  for  municipal 
office  by  taking  the  oaths  to  the  sovereigns  in  possession,  was 
to  the  last  a  Jacobite  1  in  heart.  At  his  house,  a  house  which  is 
still  pointed  out  to  every  traveler  who  visits  Lichfield,  Samuel 
was  born  on  the  18th  of  September,  1709.  In  the  child,  the 
physical,  intellectual,  and  moral  peculiarities  which  afterwards 
distinguished  the  man  were  plainly  discernible,  —  great  muscular 
strength  accompanied  by  much  awkwardness  and  many  infirmi- 
ties ;  great  quickness  of  parts,  with  a  morbid  propensity  to  sloth 
and  procrastination  ;  a  kind  and  generous  heart,  with  a  gloomy 
and  irritable  temper.  He  had  inherited  from  his  ancestors  a 
scrofulous  taint,  which  it  was  beyond  the  power  of  medicine  to 
remove.     His  parents  were  weak  enough  to  believe  that  the  royal 

1  An  adherent  of  James  II.,  or  of  his  descendants  ;  from  the  Latin  Jacobus 
(James). 

21 


2  2  MACAULAY. 

touch  was  a  specific  for  this  malady.1  In  his  third  year  he  was 
taken  up  to  London,  inspected  by  the  court  surgeon,  prayed  over 
by  the  court  chaplains,  and  stroked  and  presented  with  a  piece 
of  gold  by  Queen  Anne.  One  of  his  earliest  recollections  was 
that  of  a  stately  lady  in  a  diamond  stomacher  and  a  long  black 
hood.  Her  hand  was  applied  in  vain.  The  boy's  features,  which 
were  originally  noble  and  not  irregular,  were  distorted  by  his 
malady.  His  cheeks  were  deeply  scarred.  He  lost  for  a  time 
the  sight  of  one  eye,  and  he  saw  but  very  imperfectly  with  the 
other.  But  the  force  of  his  mind  overcame  every  impediment. 
Indolent  as  he  was,  he  acquired  knowledge  with  such  ease  and 
rapidity,  that  at  every  school  to  which  he  was  sent  he  was  soon 
the  best  scholar.  From  sixteen  to  eighteen  he  resided  at  home, 
and  was  left  to  his  own  devices.  He  learned  much  at  this  time, 
though  his  studies  were  without  guidance  and  without  plan.  He 
ransacked  his  father's  shelves,  dipped  into  a  multitude  of  books, 
read  what  was  interesting,  and  passed  over  what  was  dull.  An 
ordinary  lad  would  have  acquired  little  or  no  useful  knowledge  in 
such  a  way ;  but  much  that  was  dull  to  ordinary  lads  was  inter- 
esting to  Samuel.  He  read  little  Greek ;  for  his  proficiency  in 
that  language  was  not  such  that  he  could  take  much  pleasure  in 
the  masters  of  Attic2  poetry  and  eloquence.  But  he  had  left 
school  a  good  Latinist,  and  he  soon  acquired,  in  the  large  and 
miscellaneous  library  of  which  he  now  had  the  command,  an  ex- 
tensive knowledge  of  Latin  literature.  That  Augustan  3  delicacy 
of  taste  which  is  the  boast  of  the  great  public  schools  of  England, 
he  never  possessed.  But  he  was  early  familiar  with  some  classi- 
cal writers  who  were  quite  unknown  to  the  best  scholars  in  the 

1  This  superstition  was  widespread  in  Queen  Anne's  reign  (1702-14). 
The  newspapers  of  the  time  record  that  in  one  day  —  March  30,  1712  —  two 
hundred  persons  were  touched  by  the  Queen. 

2  Athenian,  the  most  highly  cultivated  dialect  of  the  Greek  tongue. 

3  Under  Emperor  Augustus  (died,  A.D.  14),  Roman  literature  reached  its 
highest  point.  The  period  of  Queen  Anne  has  been  styled  "  the  Augustan 
age  "  of  English  literature. 


THE  LIFE    OF  SAMUEL  JOHNSON.  23 

sixth  form  at  Eton.1  He  was  peculiarly  attracted  by  the  works 
of  the  great  restorers  of  learning.-  Once,  while  searching  for 
some  apples,  he  found  a  huge  folio  volume  of  Petrarch's 3  works. 
The  name  excited  his  curiosity,  and  he  eagerly  devoured  hun- 
dreds of  pages.  Indeed,  the  diction  and  versification  of  his  own 
Latin  compositions  show  that  he  had  paid  at  least  as  much 
attention  to  modern  copies  from  the  antique  as  to  the  original 
models. 

While  he  was  thus  irregularly  educating  himself,  his  family  was 
sinking  into  hopeless  poverty.  Old  Michael  Johnson  was  much 
better  qualified  to  pore  upon  books,  and  to  talk  about  them,  than 
to  trade  in  them.  His  business  declined  :  his  debts  increased  ;  it 
was  with  difficulty  that  the  daily  expenses  of  his  household  were 
defrayed.  It  was  out  of  his  power  to  support  his  son  at  either 
university  ;4  but  a  wealthy  neighbor  offered  assistance,  and,  in  re- 
liance on  promises  which  proved  to  be  of  very  little  value,  Sam- 
uel was  entered  at  Pembroke  College,  Oxford.  When  the  young 
scholar  presented  himself  to  the  rulers  of  that  society,  they  were 
amazed  not  more  by  his  ungainly  figure  and  eccentric  manners 
than  by  the  quantity  of  extensive  and  curious  information  which 
he  had  picked  up  during  many  months  of  desultory,  but  not  un- 
profitable study.  On  the  first  day  of  his  residence,  he  surprised 
his  teachers  by  quoting  Macrobius  ;5  and  one  of  the  most  learned 

1  One  of  the  famous  schools  of  England.  Walpole,  Gray,  Shelley,  Fox, 
Canning,  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington  were  educated  at  Eton. 

-  A  revival  of  learning  and  classical  study  marked  the  great  intellectual 
movement  of  the  fourteenth,  fifteenth,  and  sixteenth  centuries.  The  text 
almdes  to  famous  scholars  of  the  Renaissance,  like  Petrarch,  Politian,  Eras- 
mus, and  Sir  Thomas  More. 

3  A  celebrated  Italian  poet  (1304-74). 

4  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  the  two  great  English  universities.  Christ 
Church,  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  fashionable  colleges  of  Oxford,  was 
established  "by  Henry  VIII.  Pembroke  College  was  founded  in  1624;  its 
library  contains  many  memorials  of  Johnson. 

5»Roman  grammarian  (beginning  of  fifth  century),  and  author  of  a  series 
of  essays. 


24  MACAU  LAY. 

among  them  declared  that  he   had  never  known  a  freshman  of 
equal  attainments. 

At  Oxford,  Johnson  resided  during  about  three  years.  He  was 
poor,  even  to  raggedness  ;  and  his  appearance  excited  a  mirth  and 
a  pity  which  were  equally  intolerable  to  his  haughty  spirit.  He 
was  driven  from  the  quadrangle  of  Christ  Church  by  the  sneer- 
ing looks  which  the  members  of  that  aristocratical  society  cast  at 
the  holes  in  his  shoes.  Some  charitable  person  placed  a  new  pair 
at  his  door ;  but  he  spurned  them  away  in  a  fury.  Distress  made 
him,  not  servile,  but  reckless  and  ungovernable.  No  opulent 
gentleman  commoner,1  panting  for  one  and  twenty,  could  have 
treated  the  academical  authorities  with  more  gross  disrespect. 
The  needy  scholar  was  generally  to  be  seen  under  the  gate  of 
Pembroke,  a  gate  now  adorned  with  his  effigy,  haranguing  a 
circle  of  lads,  over  whom,  in  spite  of  his  tattered  gown  and  dirty 
linen,  his  wit  and  audacity  gave  him  an  undisputed  ascendency. 
In  every  mutiny  against  the  discipline  of  the  college,  he  was  the' 
ringleader.  Much  was  pardoned,  however,  to  a  youth  so  highly 
distinguished  by  abilities  and  acquirements.  He  had  early  made 
himself  known  by  turning  Pope's  "  Messiah  "  2  into  Latin  verse. 
The  style  and  rhythm,  indeed,  were  not  exactly  Virgilian;3  but 
the  translation  found  many  admirers,  and  was  read  with  pleasure 
by  Pope  himself. 

The  time  drew  near  at  which  Johnson  would,  in  the  ordinary 

1  A  student  in  some  English  colleges  (Oxford  and  Winchester),  who  pays 
for  his  commons,  and  who  is  not,  like  a  fellow,  dependent  on  the  foundation 
for  support.  There  grew  up  at  Oxford,  students  of  many  ranks,  ■ —  noblemen, 
gentlemen  commoners,  fellow  commoners,  servitors  ;  but  these  grades  t.re 
now  practically  obsolete,  students  being  distinguished  as  "commoners"  or 
"  scholars  "  (students  "  on  the  foundation  "). 

2  A  sacred  eclogue  by  Alexander  Pope  (1688-1744),  in  imitation  of  Virgil's 
Pollio,  first  published  in  the   Spectator.      It  is  written  in  rhyming  couplets. 

'  In  reading  several  passages  of  the  prophet  Isaiah  which  foretell  the  coming 
of  Christ.''  said  Pope,  "  I  could  not  but  observe  a  remarkable  parity  between 
many  of  the  thoughts  and  those  in  the  Pollio  of  Virgil." 

:;  Virgil  (70-19  B.C.)  was  a  celebrated  Roman  poet  of  the  Augustan  age; 
author  of  Eclogues,  Ceorgics,  and  the  /Eneid. 


THE   LIFE    OF  SAMUEL   JOHNSON.  25 

course  of  things,  have  become  a  bachelor  of  arts ;  but  he  was  at 
the  end  of  his  resources.  Those  promises  of  support  on  which 
he  had  relied  had  not  been  kept.  His  family  could  do  nothing 
for  him.  His  debts  to  Oxford  tradesmen  were  small  indeed,  yet 
larger  than  he  could  pay.  In  the  autumn  of  1731  he  was  under 
the  necessity  of  quitting  the  university  without  a  degree.  In  the 
following  winter  his  father  died.  The  old  man  left  but  a  pit- 
tance ;  and  of  that  pittance  almost  the  whole  was  appropriated 
to  the  support  of  his  widow.  The  property  to  which  Samuel 
succeeded  amounted  to  no  more  than  twenty  pounds. 

His  life,  during  the  thirty  years  which  followed,  was  one  hard 
struggle  with  poverty.  The  misery  of  that  struggle  needed  no 
aggravation,  but  was  aggravated  by  the  sufferings  of  an  unsound 
body  and  an  unsound  mind.  Before  the  young  man  left  the 
university,  his  hereditary  malady  had  broken  forth  in  a  singularly 
cruel  form.  He  had  become  an  incurable  hypochondriac.  He 
said  long  after,  that  he  had  been  mad  all  his  life,  or  at  least  not 
perfectly  sane ;  and,  in  truth,  eccentricities  less  strange  than  his 
have  often  been  thought  grounds  sufficient  for  absolving  felons 
and  for  setting  aside  wills.  His  grimaces,  his  gestures,1  his  mut- 
terings,  sometimes  diverted  and  sometimes  terrified  people  who 
did  not  know  him.  At  a  dinner  table  he  would,  in  a  fit  of  ab- 
sence, stoop  down  and  twitch  off  a  lady's  shoe.  He  would 
amaze  a  drawing-room  by  suddenly  ejaculating  a  clause  of  the 
Lord's  Prayer.  He  would  conceive  an  unintelligible  aversion  to 
a  particular  alley,  and  perform  a  great  circuit  rather  than  see  the 
hateful  place.  He  would  set  his  heart  on  touching  every  post  in 
the  streets  through  which  he  walked.  If  by  any  chance  he 
missed  a  post,  he  would  go  back  a  hundred  yards,  and  repair  the 
omission.  Under  the  influence  of  his  disease,  his  Senses  became 
morbidly  torpid,  and  his  imagination  morbidly  active.     At  one 

1  Of  these  motions  or  tricks  of  Dr.  Johnson,  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  said, 
"  He  could  sit  motionless,  when  he  was  told  to  do  so,  as  well  as  any  other 
man.  My  opinion  is,  that  it  proceeded  from  a  habit,  which  he  had  indulged 
himself  in,  of  accompanying  his  thoughts  witli  certain  untoward  actions." 


26  MACAU  LAY. 

time  he  would  stand  poring  on  the  town  clock  without  being 
able  to  tell  the  hour.  At  another,  he  would  distinctly  hear  his 
mother,  who  was  many  miles  off,  calling  him  by  his  name.  But 
this  was  not  the  worst.  A  deep  melancholy  took  possession  of 
him,  and  gave  a  dark  tinge  to  all  his  views  of  human  nature  and 
of  human  destiny.  Such  wretchedness  as  he  endured  has  driven 
many  men  to  shoot  themselves  or  drown  themselves.  But  he 
was  under  no  temptation  to  commit  suicide.  He  was  sick  of 
life,  but  he  was  afraid  of  death ;  and  he  shuddered  at  every  sight 
or  sound  which  reminded  him  of  the  inevitable  hour.  In  religion 
he  found  but  little  comfort  during  his  long  and  frequent  fits  of 
dejection  ;  for  his  religion  partook  of  his  own  character.  The 
light  from  heaven  shone  on  him  indeed,  but  not  in  a  direct  line, 
or  with  its  own  pure  splendor.  The  rays  had  to  struggle  through 
a  disturbing  medium :  they  reached  him  refracted,  dulled,  and 
discolored  by  the  thick  gloom  which  had  settled  on  his  soul ;  and, 
though  they  might  be  sufficiently  clear  to  guide  him,  were  too  dim 
to  cheer  him. 

With  such  infirmities  of  body  and  of  mind,  this  celebrated  man 
was  left,  at  two  and  twenty,  to  fight  his  way  through  the  world. 
He  remained  during  about  five  years  in  the  midland  counties. 
At  Lichfield,  his  birthplace  and  his  early  home,  he  had  inherited 
some  friends,  and  acquired  others.  He  was  kindly  noticed  by 
Henry  Hervey,1  a  gay  officer  of  noble  family,  who  happened 
to  be  quartered  there.  Gilbert  Walmesley,2  registrar  of  the 
ecclesiastical  court3  of  the  diocese, —  a  man  of  distinguished 
parts,  learning,  and  knowledge  of  the  world, — did  himself  honor 
by  patronizing  the  young  adventurer,  whose  repulsive  person, 
unpolished  manners,  and  squalid  garb,  moved  many  of  the  petty 
aristocracy  of  the  neighborhood   to  laughter  or  to  disgust.     At 

1  The  Hon.  Henry  Hervey,  third  son  of  the  first  Earl  of  Bristol :  his 
eldest  brother  was  Pope's  Lord  Fanny  (see  Note  4,  p.  27). 

2  Author  (died,  1 751)  of  many  Latin  verses,  translated  in  the  Gentleman's 
Magazine. 

3  The  Prerogative  Court. 


THE   LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  JOHNSON.  27 

Lichfield,  however,  Johnson  could  find  no  way  of  earning  a 
livelihood.  He  became  usher  of  a  grammar  school  in  Leices- 
tershire ;  he  resided  as  a  humble  companion  in  the  house  of  a 
country  gentleman ;  but  a  life  of  dependence  was  insupportable 
to  his  haughty  spirit.  He  repaired  to  Birmingham,  and  there 
earned  a  few  guineas  by  literary  drudgery.  In  that  town  he 
printed  a  translation,  little  noticed  at  the  time,  and  long  for- 
gotten, of  a  Latin  book  about  Abyssinia.1  He  then  put  forth 
proposals  for  publishing  by  subscription  the  poems  of  Politian,2 
with  notes  containing  a  history  of  modern  Latin  verse ;  but  sub- 
scriptions did  not  come  in,  and  the  volume  never  appeared. 

While  leading  this  vagrant  and  miserable  life,  Johnson  fell  in 
love.  The  object  of  his  passion  was  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Porter,  a 
widow  who  had  children  as  old  as  himself.  To  ordinary  specta- 
tors, the  lady  appeared  to  be  a  short,  fat,  coarse  woman,  painted 
half  an  inch  thick,  dressed  in  gaudy  colors,  and  fond  of  exhibit- 
ing provincial  airs  and  graces  which  were  not  exactly  those  of 
the  Queensberrys 3  and  Lepels.4  To  Johnson,  however,  whose 
passions  were  strong,  whose  eyesight  was  too  weak  to  distinguish 
ceruse  from  natural  bloom,  and  who  had  seldom  or  never  been 
in  the  same  room  with  a  woman  of  real  fashion,  his  Titty,  as  he 
called  her,  was  the  most  beautiful,  graceful,  and  accomplished  of 
her  sex.  That  his  admiration  was  unfeigned  cannot  be  doubted, 
for  she  was  as  poor  as  himself.  She  accepted,  with  a  readiness 
which  did  her  little  honor,  the  addresses  of  a  suitor  who  might 
have  been  her  son.  The  marriage,  however,  in  spite  of  occasional 
wranglings,  proved  happier  than  might  have  been  expected.    The 

1  Translation  and  abridgment  of  a  Voyage  to  Abyssinia,  by  Father  Lobo, 
a  Portuguese  priest  ( 1 593-1678). 

2  A  Florentine  poet  and  scholar  (1454-94) ;  author  of  poems  in  Latin  and 
Italian. 

3  Catherine  Hyde  (died,  1777),  Duchess  of  Queensberry,  a  celebrated 
beauty,  was  the  eccentric  friend  of  Gay.  See  Letters  of  Horace  Walpole 
(to  Conway,  June  8,  1747). 

4  A  friend  of  Pope.  She  married  Lord  John  Hervey  (1696-1743),  who 
wrote  Memoirs  of  the  Reign  of  George  II.  (see  Thackeray's  George  II.). 


28  MACAULAY. 

lover  continued  to  be  under  the  illusions  of  the  wedding  day  till 
the  lady  died,  in  her  sixty-fourth  year.  On  her  monument  he 
placed  an  inscription  extolling  the  charms  of  her  person  and  of 
her  manners  ;  and  when,  long  after  her  decease,  he  had  occasion 
to  mention  her,  he  exclaimed,  with  a  tenderness  half  ludicrous, 
half  pathetic,  "  Pretty  creature  !  " 

His  marriage  made  it  necessary  for  him  to  exert  himself  more 
strenuously  than  he  had  hitherto  done.  He  took  a  house  in  the 
neighborhood  of  his  native  town,  and  advertised  for  pupils.  But 
eighteen  months  passed  away ;  and  only  three  pupils  came  to  his 
academy.  Indeed,  his  appearance  was  so  strange,  and  his  tem- 
per so  violent,  that  his  schoolroom  must  have  resembled  an  ogre's 
den.  Nor  was  the  tawdry  painted  grandmother  whom  he  called 
his  Titty,  well  qualified  to  make  provision  for  the  comfort  of 
young  gentlemen.  David  Garrick,1  who  was  one  of  the  pupils, 
used  many  years  later  to  throw  the  best  company  of  London  into 
convulsions  of  laughter  by  mimicking  the  endearments  of  this 
extraordinary  pair. 

At  length  Johnson,  in  the  twenty-eighth  year  of  his  age,  deter- 
mined to  seek  his  fortune  in  the  capital  as  a  literary  adventurer. 
He  set  out  with  a  few  guineas,  three  acts  of  the  tragedy  of  "  Irene"2 
in  manuscript,  and  two  or  three  letters  of  introduction  from  his 
friend  Walmesley. 

Never  since  literature  became  a  calling  in  England  had  it 
been  a  less  gainful  calling  than  at  the  time  when  Johnson  took  up 
his  residence  in  London.  In  the  preceding  generation,  a  writer 
of  eminent  merit  was  sure  to  be  munificently  rewarded  by  the 
government.  The  least  that  he  could  expect  was  a  pension  or  a 
sinecure  place ;  and,  if  he  showed  any  aptitude  for  politics,  he 

1  The  celebrated  actor  (1716-79).  He  was  before  all  a  Shakespearean 
actor,  and  (according  to  Lecky)  did  more  than  any  other  man  to  extend  the 
popularity  of  Shakespeare.  In  1741  he  made  his  appearance  in  the  character 
of  Richard  III.  Gray,  in  a  letter  (1741),  says,  "  Did  I  tell  you  about  Mr. 
Garrick  that  the  town  are  horn-mad  after?  There  are  a  dozen  dukes  of  a 
night  at  Goodman's  Fields  [Theater]  sometimes." 

2  See  p.  40. 


£ 


THE   LIFE    OF  SAMUEL   JOHXSON.  29 

might  hope  to  be  a  member  of  Parliament,  a  lord  of  the  treasury, 
an  ambassador,  a  secretary  of  state.1  It  would  be  easy,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  name  several  writers  2  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
of  whom  the  least  successful  has  received  forty  thousand  pounds 
from  the  booksellers.  But  Johnson  entered  on  his  vocation  in 
the  most  dreary  part  of  the  dreary  interval  which  separated  two 
ages  of  prosperity.  Literature  had  ceased  to  flourish  under  the 
patronage  of  the  great,  and  had  not  begun  to  flourish  under  the 
patronage  of  the  public.  One  man  of  letters,  indeed,  Pope,  had 
acquired  by  his  pen  what  was  then  considered  as  a  handsome 
fortune,3  and  lived  on  a  footing  of  equality  with  nobles  and  min- 
isters of  state.  But  this  was  a  solitary  exception.  Even  an 
author  whose  reputation  was  established  and  whose  works  were 
popular — such  an  author  as  Thomson,4  whose  "  Seasons  "  were 
in  every  library ;  such  an  author  as  Fielding,5  whose  "  Pasquin  " 
had  had  a  greater  run  than  any  drama  since  the  "  Beggar's 
Opera  "  6 — was  sometimes  glad  to  obtain,  by  pawning  his  best 
coat,  the  means  of  dining  on  tripe  at  a  cookshop  underground, 
where  he  could  wipe  his  hands,  after  his  greasy  meal,  on  the 
back  of  a  Newfoundland  dog.  It  is  easy,  therefore,  to  imagine 
what  humiliations  and  privations  must  have  awaited  the  novice 
who  had  still  to  earn  a  name.  One  of  the  publishers  to  whom 
Johnson  applied  for  employment  measured  with  a  scornful  eye 

1  In  the  executive  department  of  the  English  Government,  the  Treasury 
Board  consists  of  four  lords  of  the  treasury  and  a  chancellor  of  the  exchequer. 
To  the  first  lord  of  the  treasury  are  usually  assigned  the  duties  of  the  prime 
minister.  There  are  five  secretaries  of  state;  namely,  for  the  home,  foreign, 
colonial,  war,  and  Indian  departments. 

2  Scott  and  Byron. 

■    3  Pope's  translation  of  Homer  brought  him  about  nine  thousand  pounds. 

4  James  Thomson  (1700-48).      See  Introduction. 

5  Henry  Fielding  (1707-54),  one  of  the  greatest  of  English  novelists; 
author  of  Tom  Jones.      Pasquin  (1736)  is  a  dramatic  satire. 

6  An  English  ballad  opera  (1728)  by  John  Gay  (1688-1732).  It  was 
written  to  ridicule  the  Italian  operatic  style;  and  its  chief  characters,  high- 
waymen and  pickpockets,  are  a  satire  on  the  corrupt  statesmen  of  the  day. 


30  MACAU  LAY. 

that  athletic  though  uncouth  frame,  and  exclaimed,  "  You  had 
better  get  a  porter's  knot,1  and  carry  trunks."  Nor  was  the 
advice  bad ;  for  a  porter  was  likely  to  be  as  plentifully  fed  and 
as  comfortably  lodged  as  a  poet. 

Some  time  appears  to  have  elapsed  before  Johnson  was  able 
to  form  any  literary  connection  from  which  he  could  expect 
more  than  bread  for  the  day  which  was  passing  over  him.  He 
never  forgot  the  generosity  with  which  Hervey,  who  was  now 
residing  in  London,  relieved  his  wants  during  this  time  of  trial. 
"  Harry  Herv.ey,"  said  the  old  philosopher  many  years  later, 
"  was  a  vicious  man  ;  but  he  was  very  kind  to  me.  If  you  call 
a  dog  Hervey,  I  shall  love  him."  At  Hervey's  table,  Johnson 
sometimes  enjoyed  feasts  which  were  made  more  agreeable  by 
contrast.  But  in  general  he  dined,  and  thought  that  he  dined 
well,  on  sixpennyworth  of  meat  and  a  pennyworth  of  bread  at  an 
alehouse  near  Drury  Lane.2 

The  effect  of  the  privations  and  sufferings  which  he  endured 
at  this  time  was  discernible  to  the  last  in  his  temper  and  his 
deportment.  His  manners  had  never  been  courtly.  They  now 
became  almost  savage.  Being  frequently  under  the  necessity  of 
wearing  shabby  coats  and  dirty  shirts,  he  became  a  confirmed 
sloven.  Being  often  very  hungry  when  he  sat  down  to  his  meals, 
he  contracted  a  habit  of  eating  with  ravenous  greediness.  Even 
to  the  end  of  his  life,  and  even  at  the  tables  of  the  great,  the  sight 
of  food  affected  him  as  it  affects  wild  beasts  and  birds  of  prey. 
His  taste  in  cookery,  formed  in  subterranean  ordinaries3  and 
a  la  mode  beefshops,  was  far  from  delicate.  Whenever  he  was  so 
fortunate  as  to  have  near  him  a  hare  that  had  been  kept  too  long, 
or  a  meat  pie  made  with  rancid  butter,  he  gorged  himself  with 
such  violence,  that  his  veins  swelled  and  the  moisture  broke  out 

1  "  A  pad  for  supporting  burdens  on  the  head." 

2  A  London  street  communicating  with  the  Strand ;  near  it,  on  Russell 
Street,  is  the  celebrated  Drury  Lane  Theater,  first  opened  in  1663. 

3  "  Ordinary,"  i.e.,  "  a  place  of  eating  established  at  a  certain  price."  — 
JOHNSON  :  Dictionary. 


THE   LIFE    OF  SAMUEL   JOHNSON.  31 

on  his  forehead.  The  affronts  which  his  poverty  emboldened 
stupid  and  low-minded  men  to  offer  to  him,  would  have  broken  a 
mean  spirit  into  sycophancy,  but  made  him  rude  even  to  ferocity. 
Unhappily,  the  insolence,  which,  while  it  was  defensive,  was  par- 
donable and  in  some  sense  respectable,  accompanied  him  into 
societies  where  he  was  treated  with  courtesy  and  kindness.  He 
was  repeatedly  provoked  into  striking  those  who  had  taken  liber- 
ties with  him.  All  the  sufferers,  however,  were  wise  enough  to 
abstain  from  talking  about  their  beatings,  except  Osborne,  the 
most  rapacious  and  brutal  of  booksellers,  who  proclaimed  every- 
where that  he  had  been  knocked  clown  by  the  huge  fellow  whom 
he  had  hired  to  puff  the  Harleian  Library.1 

About  a  year  after  Johnson  had  begun  to  reside  in  London,  he 
was  fortunate  enough  to  obtain  regular  employment  from  Cave,2 
an  enterprising  and  intelligent  bookseller,  who  was  proprietor  and 
editor  of  the  "  Gentleman's  Magazine."  That  journal,  just  enter- 
ing on  the  ninth  year  of  its  long  existence,  was  the  only  periodical 
work  in  the  kingdom  which  then  had  what  would  now  be  called 
a  large  circulation.  It  was,  indeed,  the  chief  source  of  parlia- 
mentary intelligence.  It  was  not  then  safe,  even  during  a  recess, 
to  publish  an  account  of  the  proceedings  of  either  House  without 
some  disguise.  Cave,  however,  ventured  to  entertain  his  readers 
with  what  he  called  "  Reports  of  the  Debates  of  the  Senate  of 
Lilliput."3  France  was  Blefuscu  ;  London  was  Mildendo  ;  pounds 
were  sprugs ;  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  4  was  the  Nardac  secretary 
of-state  ;  Lord  Hardwicke5  was  the  Hugo  Hickrad  ;  and  William 
Pulteney  6  was  Wingul  Pulnub.    To  write  the  speeches  was,  dur- 

l  The  celebrated  collection  of  books  made  by  the  Earl  of  Oxford  (Henry 
Harley),  purchased  by  Osborne  for  thirteen  thousand  pounds  (see  Note  2, 
p.  59).  2  Edward  Cave  (1691-1754). 

3  The  name  is  taken  from  Swift's  Gulliver's  Travels. 

4  A  famous  Whig  statesman  (1693-1768),  secretary  of  state  and  premier : 
he  formed  a  coalition  with  Pitt  (1757).      See  Macaulay's  Chatham. 

5  Whigstatesman(i690-i764) :  as  lord  chancellor  he  won  a  high  reputation. 

6  Famous  Whig  leader  (1684-1764),  at  first  a  friend  of  Walpole,  but  after- 
ward the  head  of  the  faction  called  "  the  Patriots  ;  "  created  Earl  of  Bath. 


32  MACAULAY. 

ing  several  years,  the  business  of  Johnson.  He  was  generally 
furnished  with  notes — meager  indeed,  and  inaccurate  —  of  what 
had  been  said ;  but  sometimes  he  had  to  find  arguments  and 
eloquence,  both  for  the  ministry  and  for  the  opposition.  He  was 
himself  a  Tory,1  not  from  rational  conviction, — for  his  serious 
opinion  was,  that  one  form  of  government  was  just  as  good  or  as 
bad  as  another, — but  from  mere  passion,  such  as  inflamed  the 
Capulets  against  the  Montagues,2  or  the  Blues  of  the  Roman 
circus  against  the  Greens.3  In  his  infancy  he  had  heard  so  much 
talk  about  the  villainies  of  the  Whigs4  and  the  dangers  of  the 
Church,  that  he  had  become  a  furious  partisan  when  he  could 
scarcely  speak.  Before  he  was  three,  he  had  insisted  on  being 
taken  to  hear  Sacheverell  5  preach  at  Lichfield  Cathedral,  and  had 
listened  to  the  sermon  with  as  much  respect,  and  probably  with 
as  much  intelligence,  as  any  Staffordshire  squire  in  the  congre- 
gation. The  work  which  had  been  begun  in  the  nursery  had  been 
completed  by  the  university.  Oxford,  when  Johnson  resided 
there,  was  the  most  Jacobitical  place  in  England  ;  and  Pembroke 
was  one  of  the  most  Jacobitical  colleges  in  Oxford.  The 
prejudices  which  he  brought  up  to  London  were  scarcely  less 
absurd  than  those  of  his  own  Tom  Tempest.6  Charles  II. 
and  James  II.7  were  two  of  the  best  kings  that  ever  reigned. 

1  The  Tories  were  the  peace  party  in  Queen  Anne's  reign,  and  had  a 
strong  ally  in  the  Church.  During  Johnson's  earlier  years  (1712-42)  the 
Whigs  ruled  England. 

2  In  Shakespeare's  Romeo  and  Juliet,  the  families  of  the  two  lovers,  the 
Montagues  and  the  Capulets,  cherish  an  hereditary  feud. 

3  For  an  account  of  the  circus  factions  at  Constantinople,  see  Gibbon's 
Roman  Empire,  chap.  xli. 

4  Of  the  two  great  political  parties,  the  Whigs  were  the  more  liberal. 
They  defended  the  revolution  of  1688,  and  favored  the  Hanoverian  suc- 
cession. 

5  Dr.  Henry  Sacheverell  (1672-1724)  a  High-church  divine  who  preached 
in  severe  terms  against  the  Whig  administration.  He  was  impeached  (1710), 
and  suspended  from  office  for  three  years. 

6  A  bigoted  and  noisy  partisan.      For  the  character,  see  Idler  No.   10. 
1  Charles  II.  reigned  1660-85;   and  James  II.,   16S5-88. 


THE   LIFE    OF  SAMUEL   JOHNSON.  33 

Laud,1  a  poor  creature  who  never  did,  said,  or  wrote  anything  indi- 
cating more  than  the  ordinary  capacity  of  an  old  woman,  was  a 
prodigy  of  parts  and  learning,  over  whose  tomb  Art  and  Genius 2 
still  continued  to  weep.  Hampden3  deserved  no  more  honorable 
name  than  that  of  "  the  zealot  of  rebellion."  Even  the  ship  money,4 
condemned  not  less  decidedly  by  Falkland  5  and  Clarendon  6  than 
by  the  bitterest  Roundheads,7  Johnson  would  not  pronounce  to 
have  been  an  unconstitutional  impost.  Under  a  government  the 
mildest  that  had  ever  been  known  in  the  world,  under  a  govern- 
ment which  allowed  to  the  people  an  unprecedented  liberty  of 
speech  and  action,  he  fancied  that:  he  was  a  slave  ;  he  assailed  the 
ministry  with  obloquy  which  refuted  itself,  and  regretted  the  lost 
freedom  and  happiness  of  those  golden  days  in  which  a  writer 
who  had  taken  but  one-tenth  part  of  the  license  allowed  to  him 
would  have  been  pilloried,  mangled  with  the  shears,  whipped 
at  the  cart's  tail,  and  flung  into  a  noisome  dungeon  to  die.  He 
hated  dissenters  and  stockjobbers,  the  excise  and  the  army, 
septennial  parliaments  and  continental  connections.  He  long 
had  an  aversion  to  the  Scotch,  an  aversion  of  which  he  could 
not  remember  the  commencement,  but  which,  he  owned,  had 
probably  originated  in  his  abhorrence  of  the  conduct  of  the 
nation  during  the  Great  Rebellion.8  It  is  easy  to  guess  in  what 
manner  debates  on  great  party  questions  were  likely  to  be  re- 

l  Archbishop  Laud  (i 573-1645),  the  persecutor  of  the  Puritans.  He  was 
impeached  and  executed. 

'4  "Around  his  tomb  let  Art  and  Genius  weep." — J'anity  of  Human 
Wishes,  line  173. 

3  John  Hampden  (1 594-1643),  celebrated  leader  of  the  patriotic  party 
against  Charles  I. 

4  An  arbitrary  tax  imposed  by  Charles  I.,  first  introduced  in  1634.  The 
lax  was  levied  on  the  whole  kingdom,  and  the  money  raised  was  expended 
on  the  navy. 

5  A  Royalist  leader  (1610—43)  in  the  civil  war. 

6  A   Royalist  statesman  (1608-74),  author  of  a  history  of  the  civil  war. 

7  A  name  given  in  derision  by  the  Royalists  to  the  Puritans  and  Independ- 
ents. 

8  The  civil  war  against  Charles  I.,  begun  in  1642. 

3 


34  MACAULAY. 

ported  by  a  man  whose  judgment  was  so  much  disordered  by 
party  spirit.  A  show  of  fairness  was,  indeed,  necessary  to  the 
prosperity  of  the  magazine.  But  Johnson  long  afterwards  owned, 
that,  though  he  had  saved  appearances,  he  had  taken  care  that 
the  Whig  dogs  should  not  have  the  best  of  it ;  and,  in  fact, 
every  passage  which  has  lived,  every  passage  which  bears  the 
marks  of  his  higher  faculties,  is  put  into  the  mouth  of  some 
member  of  the  opposition. 

A  few  weeks  after  Johnson  had  entered  on  these  obscure 
labors,  he  published  a  work  which  at  once  placed  him  high  among 
the  writers  of  his  age.  It  is  probable  that  what  he  had  suffered 
during  his  first  year  in  London  had  often  reminded  him  of  some 
parts  of  that  noble  poem  in  which  Juvenal 1  had  described  the 
misery  and  degradation  of  a  needy  man  of  letters,  lodged  among 
the  pigeons'  nests  in  the  tottering  garrets  which  overhung 
the  streets  of  Rome.  Pope's  admirable  imitations  of  Horace's  2 
"  Satires  "  and  "  Epistles  "  had  recently  appeared,  were  in  every 
hand,  and  were  by  many  readers  thought  superior  to  the  originals. 
What  Pope  had  done  for  Horace,  Johnson  aspired  to  do  for 
Juvenal.  The  enterprise  was  bold,  and  yet  judicious.  For  be- 
tween Johnson  and  Juvenal  there  was  much  in  common, — much 
more,  certainly,  than  between  Pope  and  Horace. 

Johnson's  "  London  "  appeared  without  hisname  in  May,  1 738. 
He  received  only  ten  guineas  for  this  stately  and  vigorous  poem ; 
but  the  sale  was  rapid,  and  the  success  complete.  A  second 
edition  was  required  within  a  week.  Those  small  critics  who 
are  always  desirous  to  lower  established  reputations,  ran  about 
proclaiming  that  the  anonymous  satirist  was  superior  to  Pope  in 
Pope's  own  peculiar  department  of  literature.  It  ought  to  be 
remembered,  to  the  honor  of  Pope,  that  he  joined  heartily  in 
the  applause  with  which  the  appearance  of  a  rival  genius  was 

1  A  famous  Roman  satirist  (about  A.D.  60-140).  The  allusion  is  to  his 
Third  Satire. 

2  A  famous  poet  (65-8  B.C.),  whose  odes,  epistles,  and  satires  show  the 
Latin  tongue  in  its  perfection.     Pope's  Moral  Essays  and  Satires  are  Horatian. 


THE  LIFE    OF  SAMUEL  JOHNSON.  35 

welcomed.  He  made  inquiries  about  the  author  of  "  London." 
Such  a  man,  he  said,  could  not  long  be  concealed.  The  name 
was  soon  discovered  ;  and  Pope,  with  great  kindness,  exerted  him- 
self to  obtain  an  academical  degree,  and  the  mastership  of  a 
grammar  school,  for  the  poor  young  poet.  The  attempt  failed, 
and  Johnson  remained  a  bookseller's  hack. 

It  does  not  appear  that  these  two  men — the  most  eminent  writer 
of  the  generation  which  was  going  out,  and  the  most  eminent 
writer  of  the  generation  which  was  coming  in — ever  saw  each 
other.  They  lived  in  very  different  circles,  one  surrounded  by 
dukes  and  earls,  the  other  by  starving  pamphleteers  and  index- 
makers.  Among  Johnson's  associates  at  this  time  may  be  men- 
tioned Boyse,1  who,  when  his  shirts  were  pledged,  scrawled  Latin 
verses,  sitting  up  in  bed  with  his  arms  through  two  holes  in  his 
blankets,  who  composed  very  respectable  sacred  poetry  when  he 
was  sober,  and  who  was  at  last  run  over  by  a  hackney  coach 
when  he  was  drunk  ;  Hoole,2  surnamed  the  metaphysical  tailor, 
who,  instead  of  attending  to  his  measures,  used  to  trace  geomet- 
rical diagrams  on  the  board  where  he  sat  cross-legged ;  and  the 
penitent  impostor,  George  Psalmanazar,3  who,  after  poring  all 
day,  in  a  humble  lodging,  on  the  folios  of  Jewish  rabbis  and 
Christian  fathers,  indulged  himself  at  night  with  literary  and 
theological  conversation  at  an  alehouse  in  the  city.  But  the 
most  remarkable  of  the  persons  with  whom  at  this  time  Johnson 
consorted,  was  Richard  Savage,4  an  earl's  son,  a  shoemaker's 

1  Samuel  Boyse  (1708-49),  a  forgotten  literary  drudge. 

2  John  Hoole  (1727-1803),  the  translator  of  Tasso  and  Ariosto,  received 
part  of  his  education  in  Grub  Street,  being  taught  by  his  uncle,  "  Hoole  the 
tailor,"  who  is  here  alluded  to. 

3  The  assumed  name  of  a  literary  impostor  (about  1679-1763),  who  pre- 
tended to  be  a  native  of  Formosa,  and  wrote  a  fictitious  account  of  that  island 
(1704),  and  afterwards  applied  himself  to  the  study  of  theology.  He  is 
mentioned  in  Humphry  Clinker. 

4  Author  of  the  Wanderer  (born,  1698  ;  died,  1743) :  his  poetical  works  are 
now  forgotten.  He  was  reputed  to  be  the  illegitimate  son  of  the  Countess  of 
Macclesfield. 


36  MACAULAY. 

apprentice,  who  had  seen  life  in  all  its  forms,  who  had  feasted 
among  blue  ribbands  in  St.  James's  Square,1  and  had  lain  with 
fifty  pounds'  weight  of  irons  on  his  legs  in  the  condemned  ward 
of  Newgate.'2  This  man  had,  after  many  vicissitudes  of  fortune, 
sunk  at  last  into  abject  and  hopeless  poverty.  His  pen  had 
failed  him.  His  patrons  had  been  taken  away  by  death,  or 
estranged  by  the  riotous  profusion  with  which  he  squandered 
their  bounty,  and  the  ungrateful  insolence  with  which  he  rejected 
their  advice.  He  now  lived  by  begging.  He  dined  on  venison 
and  champagne  whenever  he  had  been  so  fortunate  as  to  borrow 
a  guinea.  If  his  questing  had  been  unsuccessful,  he  appeased 
the  rage  of  hunger  with  some  scraps  of  broken  meat,  and  lay 
down  to  rest  under  the  piazza  of  Covent  Garden 3  in  warm 
weather,  and  in  cold  weather  as  near  as  he  could  get  to  the 
furnace  of  a  glasshouse.  Yet,  in  his  misery,  he  was  still  an 
agreeable  companion.  He  had  an  inexhaustible  store  of  anec- 
dotes about  that  gay  and  brilliant  world  from  which  he  was  now 
an  outcast.  He  had  observed  the  great  men  of  both  parties  in 
hours  of  careless  relaxation,  had  seen  the  leaders  of  opposition 
without  the  mask  of  patriotism,  and  had  heard  the  prime  minis- 
ter roar  with  laughter,  and  tell  stories  not  overdecent.  During 
some  months,  Savage  lived  in  the  closest  familiarity  with  John- 
son ;  and  then  the  friends  parted,  not  without  tears.  Johnson 
remained  in  London  to  drudge  for  Cave.  Savage  went  to  the 
west  of  England,  lived  there  as  he  had  lived  everywhere,  and  in 
1743  died,  penniless  and  heartbroken,  in  Bristol  jail. 

Soon  after  his  death,  while  the  public  curiosity  was  strongly 
excited  about  his  extraordinary  character  and  his  not  less  extraor- 
dinary adventures,  a  life  of  him  appeared,  widely  different  from 

1  Not  far  from  St.  James's  Palace,  for  many  years  the  most  fashionable 
square  in  London.  "  Blue  ribbands  "  stands  by  metonymy  for  members  of 
the  Order  of  the  Garter. 

2  A  prison  for  felons  ;  destroyed  and  rebuilt  several  times. 

3  In  Bow  Street,  Covent  Garden,  a  square  and  marketplace  in  London, 
Stands  the  theater  of  the  same  name. 


THE  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL   JOHNSON.  37 

the  catchpenny  lives  of  eminent  men  which  were  then  a  staple 
article  of  manufacture  in  Grub  Street.1  The  style  was,  indeed, 
deficient  in  ease  and  variety  ;  and  the  writer  was  evidently  too 
partial  to  the  Latin  element  of  our  language.  But  the  little 
work,  with  all  its  faults,  was  a  masterpiece.  No  finer  specimen 
of  literary  biography  existed  in  any  language,  living  or  dead ; 
and  a  discerning  critic  might  have  confidently  predicted  that  the 
author  was  destined  to  be  the  founder  of  a  new  school  of  English 
eloquence. 

The  "  Life  of  Savage  "  was  anonymous  ;  but  it  was  well  known 
in  literary  circles  that  Johnson  was  the  writer.  During  the  three 
years  which  followed,  he  produced  no  important  work  ;  but  he 
was  not,  and  indeed  could  not  be,  idle.  The  fame  of  his  abili- 
ties and  learning  continued  to  grow.  Warburton  2  pronounced 
him  a  man  of  parts  and  genius  ;  and  the  praise  of  Warburton  was 
then  no  light  thing.  Such  was  Johnson's  reputation,  that  in 
1747  several  eminent  booksellers  combined  to  employ  him  in 
the  arduous  work  of  preparing  a  "  Dictionary  of  the  English 
Language,"  in  two  folio  volumes.  The  sum  which  they  agreed 
to  pay  him  was  only  fifteen  hundred  guineas  ;  and  out  of  this  sum 
he  had  to  pay  several  poor  men  of  letters  who  assisted  him  in 
the  humbler  parts  of  his  task. 

The  Prospectus  of  the  Dictionary  he  addressed  to  the  Earl  of 
Chesterfield.3  Chesterfield  had  long  been  celebrated  for  the 
politeness  of  his  manners,  the  brilliancy  of  his  wit,  and  the 
delicacy  of  his  taste.  He  was  acknowledged  to  be  the  finest 
speaker  in  the  House  of  Lords.  He  had  '-ecently  governed  Ire- 
land, at  a  momentous  conjuncture,  with  eminent  firmness,  wisdom, 

1  "  Originally  the  name  of  a  street  in  Moorfields  in  London,  much  inhab- 
ited by  writers  of  small  histories,  dictionaries,  and  temporary  poems  ;  whence 
any  mean  production  is  called  grubstreet"  —  JOHNSON  :  Dictionary.  Grub- 
street  authors  were  satirized  by  Pope  in  the  Dunciad. 

2  William  Warburton  (1698-1771)),  Bishop  of  Gloucester;  a  learned  critic. 

3  Politician,  orator,  and  man  of  fashion  (1694-1773).  Pie  was  renowned 
as  a  model  of  politeness,  and  his  Letters  to  his  son  were  accepted  in  his  time 
as  a  manual  of  conduct. 

270090 


38  MAC  A  UL  AY. 

and  humanity  ;  and  he  had  since  become  secretary  of  state.  He 
received  Johnson's  homage  with  the  most  winning  affability,  and 
requited  it  with  a  few  guineas,  bestowed,  doubtless,  in  a  very 
graceful  manner,  but  was  by  no  means  desirous  to  see  all  his 
carpets  blackened  with  the  London  mud,  and  his  soups  and  wines 
thrown  to  right  and  left  over  the  gowns  of  fine  ladies  and  the 
waistcoats  of  fine  gentlemen,  by  an  absent,  awkward  scholar,  who 
gave  strange  starts,  and  uttered  strange  growls,  who  dressed  like 
a  scarecrow,  and  ate  like  a  cormorant.  During  some  time,  John- 
son continued  to  call  on  his  patron,  but,  after  being  repeatedly 
told  by  the  porter  that  his  lordship  was  not  at  home,  took  the 
hint,  and  ceased  to  present  himself  at  the  inhospitable  door. 

Johnson  had  flattered  himself  that  he  should  have  completed 
his  Dictionary  by  the  end  of  1750  ;  but  it  was  not  till  1755  that 
he  at  length  gave  his  huge  volumes  to  the  world.  During  the 
seven  years  which  he  passed  in  the  drudgery  of  penning  defini- 
tions, and  marking  quotations  for  transcription,  he  sought  for  re- 
laxation in  literary  labor  of  a  more  agreeable  kind.  In  1749  he 
published  the  "  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes,"  an  excellent  imitation 
of  the  Tenth  Satire  of  Juvenal.  It  is  in  truth  not  easy  to  say 
whether  the  palm  belongs  to  the  ancient  or  to  the  modern  poet. 
The  couplets  1  in  which  the  fall  of  Wolsey  2  is  described,  though 
lofty  and  sonorous,  are  feeble  when  compared  with  the  wonderful 
lines3  which  bring  before  us  all  Rome  in  tumult  on  the  day  of 

1  Lines  99-128. 

2  Thomas  Wolsey  (1471-1530),  cardinal  and  prime  minister  of  Henry  VIII. 

3  Lines  56-80  (Gifford's  translation) :  — 

"  The  statues,  tumbled  down, 
Are  dragged  by  hooting  thousands  through  the  town ; 
The  brazen  cars,  torn  rudely  from  the  yoke, 
And  with  the  blameless  steeds  to  shivers  broke. — 
Then  roar  the  fires!  the  sooty  artist  blows, 
And  all  Sejanus  in  the  furnace  glows. 

"  Crown  all  your  doors  with  bay,  triumphant  bay  ! 
Sacred  to  Jove,  the  milk-white  victim  slay  ; 
For  lo !  where  great  Sejanus  by  the  throng  — 
A  joyful  spectacle  !  —  is  dragged  along." 


THE  LIFE    OF  SAMUEL   JOHNSON.  39 

the  fall  of  Sejanus,1  the  laurels  on  the  doorposts,  the  white  bull 
stalking  towards  the  Capitol,  the  statues  rolling  down  from  their 
pedestals,  the  flatterers  of  the  disgraced  minister  running  to  see 
him  dragged  with  a  hook  through  the  streets,  and  to  have  a  kick 
at  his  carcass  before  it  is  hurled  into  the  Tiber.  It  must  be 
owned,  too,  that  in  the  concluding  passage  the  Christian  moralist 
has  not  made  the  most  of  his  advantages,  and  has  fallen  decid- 
edly short  of  the  sublimity  of  his  Pagan  model.  On  the  other 
hand,  Juvenal's  Hannibal2  must  yield  to  Johnson's  Charles;3 
and  Johnson's  vigorous  and  pathetic  enumeration 4  of  the  miseries 
of  a  literary  life  must  be  allowed  to  be  superior  to  Juvenal's 
lamentation  over  the  fate  of  Demosthenes5  and  Cicero.6 

For  the  copyright  of  the  "  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes,"  Johnson 
received  only  fifteen  guineas. 

A  few  days  after  the  publication  of  this  poem,  his  tragedy, 
begun  many  years  before,  was  brought  on  the  stage.  His  pupil, 
David  Garrick,  had  in  1741  made  his  appearance  on  a  humble 
stage  in  Goodman's  Fields,  had  at  once  risen  to  the  first  place 
among  actors,  and  was  now,  after  several  years  of  almost  uninter- 
rupted success,  manager  of  Drury  Lane  Theater.  The  relation 
between  him  and  his  old  preceptor  was  of  a  very  singular  kind. 
They  repelled  each  other  strongly,  and  yet  attracted  each  other 
strongly.     Nature  had  made  them  of  very  different  clay ;  and 

1  Commander  of  the  pretorian  guard  under  the  Roman  Emperor  Tiberius. 
He  was  put  to  death  (A.D.  31)  for  his  infamous  crimes. 

2  The  famous  Carthaginian  general  (247-183  B.C.)  who  crossed  the  Alps, 
and  invaded  Italy. 

3  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden  (1697-1718),  famous  for  his  military  genius. 
Johnson  portrays  Charles's  ambition  in  lines  191-222  of  the  poem,  ending:  — 

"  He  left  the  name,  at  which  the  world  grew  pale, 
To  point  a  moral,  or  adorn  a  tale." 

4  "  There  mark  what  ills  the  scholar's  life  assail, — 

Toil,  envy,  want,  the  garret  [Patron],  and  the  jail." 

Vanity  of  Human  Wishes,  lines  159,  160. 

5  Greatest  of  Greek  orators  (died,  322  B.C.). 

6  Greatest  of  Roman  orators  (106-43  B.C.) 


40  MACAULAY. 

circumstances  had  fully  brought  out  the  natural  peculiarities  of 
both.  Sudden  prosperity  had  turned  Garrick's  head.  Continued 
adversity  had  soured  Johnson's  temper.  Johnson  saw,  with  more 
envy  than  became  so  great  a  man,  the  villa,  the  plate,  the  china, 
the  Brussels  carpet,  which  the  little  mimic  had  got  by  repeating, 
with  grimaces  and  gesticulations,  what  wiser  men  had  written ; 
and  the  exquisitely  sensitive  vanity  of  Garrick  was  galled  by  the 
thought,  that,  while  all  the  rest  of  the  world  was  applauding  him, 
he  could  obtain  from  one  morose  cynic,1  whose  opinion  it  was 
impossible  to  despise,  scarcely  any  compliment  not  acidulated 
with  scorn.  Yet  the  two  Lichfield  men  had  so  many  early  rec- 
ollections in  common,  and  sympathized  with  each  other  on  so 
many  points  on  which  they  sympathized  with  nobody  else  in  the 
vast  population  of  the  capital,  that  though  the  master  was  often 
provoked  by  the  monkeylike  impertinence  of  the  pupil,  and  the 
pupil  by  the  bearish  rudeness  of  the  master,  they  remained  friends 
till  they  were  parted  by  death.  Garrick  now  brought  "  Irene  " 
out,  with  alterations  sufficient  to  displease  the  author,  yet  not 
sufficient  to  make  the  piece  pleasing  to  the  audience.  The  pub- 
lic, however,  listened,  with  little  emotion,  but  with  much  civility, 
to  five  acts  of  monotonous  declamation.  After  nine  representa- 
tions, the  play  was  withdrawn.  It  is,  indeed,  altogether  unsuited 
to  the  stage,  and,  even  when  perused  in  the  closet,  will  be  found 
hardly  worthy  of  the  author.  He  had  not  the  slightest  notion  of 
what  blank  verse  should  be.  A  change  in  the  last  syllable  of 
every  other  line  would  make  the  versification  of  the  "  Vanity  of 
Human  Wishes"  closely  resemble  the  versification  of  "Irene." 
The  poet,  however,  cleared,  by  his  benefit  nights  2  and  by  the 
sale  of  the  copyright  of  his  tragedy,  about  three  hundred  pounds, 
then  a  great  sum  in  his  estimation. 

1  This  name,  now  applied  to  a  snappish  or  sneering  faultfinder,  was  origi- 
nally given  to  a  Greek  sect  of  philosophers  noted  for  their  coarse  manners 
and  surly  disposition. 

2  The  profits  of  every  third  performance  of  a  play  fell  to  the  author  as  his 
benefit. 


THE   LIFE    OF  SAMUEL   JO  LIN  SON.  41 

About  a  year  after  the  representation  of  "  Irene,"  he  began  to 
publish  a  series  of  short  essays  on  morals,  manners,  and  literature. 
This  species  of  composition  had  been  brought  into  fashion  by  the 
success  of  the  "  Tatler  "  and  by  the  still  more  brilliant  success  of 
the  "  Spectator."  x  A  crowd  of  small  writers  had  vainly  attempted 
to  rival  Addison.2  The  "  Lay  Monastery,"  the  "  Censor,"  the 
"  Freethinker,"  the  "Plain  Dealer,"  the  "  Champion,"  and  other 
works  of  the  same  kind,  had  had  their  short  day.  None  of  them 
had  obtained  a  permanent  place  in  our  literature ;  and  they  are 
now  to  be  found  only  in  the  libraries  of  the  curious.  At  length 
Johnson  undertook  the  adventure  in  which  so  many  aspirants 
had  failed.  In  the  thirty-sixth  year  after  the  appearance  of  the 
last  number  of  the  "  Spectator,"  appeared  .the  first  number  of  the 
"Rambler."  From  March,  1750,  to  March,  1752,  this  paper 
continued  to  come  out  every  Tuesday  and  Saturday. 

From  the  first,  the  "  Rambler  "  was  enthusiastically  admired  by 
a  few  eminent  men.  Richardson,3  when  only  five  numbers  had 
appeared,  pronounced  it  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  the  "  Spectator." 
Young4  and  Hartley5  expressed  their  approbation  not  less  warmly. 
Bubb  Dodington,6  among  whose  many  faults  indifference  to  the 
claims  of  genius  and  learning  cannot  be  reckoned,  solicited  the 
acquaintance  of  the  writer.  In  consequence,  probably,  of  the 
good  offices  of  Dodington,  who  was  then  the  confidential  adviser 

1  The  Tatler  (1709)  and  the  Spectator  (1 71 1)  were  projected  by  Richard 
Steele  (1671-1729).     They  mark  the  beginning  of  the  periodical  essay. 

2  Joseph  Addison  (1672-1719),  essayist,  famous  for  the  ease,  grace,  and 
delicate  humor  of  his  style.  Associated  with  Steele,  he  made  the  fame  of  the 
Spectator.  In  his  day  he  also  made  a  figure  as  a  poet  (Blenheim)  and  as  a 
dramatist  (Cato). 

3  Samuel  Richardson  (16S9-1761),  author  of  Pamela,  Clarissa  Harlowe, 
and  Sir  Charles  Grandison. 

4  Dr.  Edward  Young  (1681-1765),  author  of  Night  Thoughts. 

5  David  Hartley  (1705-57),  philosopher;  author  of  Observations  on 
Man. 

fi  Lord  Melcombe  (1691— 1762),  courtier  and  politician;  satirized  as  Bubo 
by  Pep#»^_jlis  Diary  gives  an  insight  into  the  Whig  intrigues  of  the  time. 


4 2  MACAULAY. 

of  Prince  Frederick,  two  of  his  Royal  Highness's  gentlemen  car- 
ried a  gracious  message  to  the  printing  office,  and  ordered  seven 
copies  for  Leicester  House.1  But  these  overtures  seem  to  have 
been  very  coldly  received.  Johnson  had  had  enough  of  the 
patronage  of  the  great  to  last  him  all  his  life,  and  was  not  dis- 
posed to  haunt  any  other  door  as  he  had  haunted  the  door  of 
Chesterfield. 

By  the  public  the  "  Rambler  "  was  at  first  very  coldly  received. 
Though  the  price  of  a  number  was  only  twopence,  the  sale  did 
not  amount  to  five  hundred.  The  profits  were  therefore  very 
small.  But  as  soon  as  the  flying  leaves  were  collected  and  re- 
printed, they  became  popular.  The  author  lived  to  see  thirteen 
thousand  copies  spread  over  England  alone.  Separate  editions 
were  published  for  the  Scotch  and  Irish  markets.  A  large  party 
pronounced  the  style  perfect,  so  absolutely  perfect,  that  in  some 
essays  it  would  be  impossible  for  the  writer  himself  to  alter  a 
single  word  for  the  better.  Another  party,  not  less  numerous, 
vehemently  accused  him  of  having  corrupted  the  purity  of  the 
English  tongue.  The  best  critics  admitted  that  his  diction  was 
too  monotonous,  too  obviously  artificial,  and  now  and  then  turgid 
even  to  absurdity.  But  they  did  justice  to  the  acuteness  of  his 
observations  on  morals  and  manners,  to  the  constant  precision 
and  frequent  brilliancy  of  his  language,  to  the  weighty  and  mag- 
nificent eloquence  of  many  serious  passages,  and  to  the  solemn 
yet  pleasing  humor  of  some  of  the  lighter  papers.  On  the  ques- 
tion of  precedence  between  Addison  and  Johnson, — a  question 
which,  seventy  years  ago,  was  much  disputed, — posterity  has  pro- 
nounced a  decision  from  which  there  is  no  appeal.  Sir  Roger, 
his  chaplain  and  his  butler,  Will  Wimble  and  Will  Honeycomb, 
the  "Vision  of  Mirza,"  the  "Journal  of  the  Retired  Citizen,"  the 
"  Everlasting  Club,"  the  "  Dunmow  Flitch,"  the  "  Loves  of  Hilpah 
and  Shalum,"  the  "  Visit  to  the  Exchange,"  and  the  "  Visit  to  the 

1  Frederick,  Prince  of  Wales  (1707-51),  son  of  George  II.,  resided  at 
Leicester  House  from  1737  until  his  death.  He  quarreled  with  his  father, 
and  became  a  member  "  of  the  opposition,"  against  Walpole  and  the  King. 


THE  LIFE    OF  SAMUEL   JOHNSON.  43 

Abbey,"  are  known  to  everybody.1  But  many  men  and  women, 
even  of  highly  cultivated  minds,  are  unacquainted  with  Squire 
Bluster  and  Mrs.  Busy,  Quisquilius  and  Venustulus,  the  "  Allegory 
of  Wit  and  Learning,"  the  "  Chronicle  of  the  Revolutions  of  a 
Garret,"  and  the  sad  fate  of  Aningait  and  Ajut.2 

The  last  "  Rambler  "  was  written  in  a  sad  and  gloomy  hour. 
Mrs.  Johnson  had  been  given  over  by  the  physicians.  Three 
days  later  she  died.  She  left  her  husband  almost  broken-hearted. 
Many  people  had  been  surprised  to  see  a  man  of  his  genius  and 
learning  stooping  to  every  drudgery,  and  denying  himself  almost 
every  comfort,  for  the  purpose  of  supplying  a  silly,  affected  old 
woman  with  superfluities,  which  she  accepted  with  but  little  grati- 
tude. But  all  his  affection  had  been  concentrated  on  her.  He 
had  neither  brother  nor  sister,  neither  son  nor  daughter.  To  him 
she  was  beautiful  as  the  Gunnings,"  and  witty  as  Lady  Mary.4 
Her  opinion  of  his  writings  was  more  important  to  him  than  the 
voice  of  the  pit  of  Drury  Lane  Theater,5  or  the  judgment  of  the 
"  Monthly  Review."  The  chief  support  which  had  sustained  him 
through  the  most  arduous  labor  of  his  life  was  the  hope  that  she 
would  enjoy  the  fame  and  the  profit  which  he  anticipated  from 
his  Dictionary.  She  was  gone ;  and  in  that  vast  labyrinth  of 
streets,  peopled  by  eight  hundred  thousand  human  beings,  he 
was  alone.  Yet  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  set  himself,  as  he 
expressed  it,  doggedly  to  work.  After  three  more  laborious 
years,  the  Dictionary  was  at  length  complete. 

1  See  Spectator:  No.  159  (Mirza) ;  No.  317  (Journal);  No.  72  (Everlast- 
ing Club)  ;  Nos.  584,  585  (Hilpa) ;  No.  69  (Royal  Exchange).  Sir  Roger 
and  the  other  familiar  characters  and  chapters  of  the  De  Coverley  Papers  need 
no  special  reference. 

2  See  Rambler,  Nos.  142,  138,  82,  22,  161,  and  186  respectively. 

s  The  two  Gunning  sisters,  —  the  Duchess  of  Hamilton  and  the  Countess 
of  Coventry,  —  famous  beauties  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  (see 
Dictionary  of  National  Biography). 

4  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu  ( 1 689-1 762),  distinguished  for  her  literary 
attainments  and  her  Letters  to  Pope,  Addison,  and  other  eminent  men. 

5  See  Note  2,  p.  30. 


44  MACAULAY. 

It  had  been  generally  supposed  that  this  great  work  would  be 
dedicated  to  the  eloquent  and  accomplished  nobleman  to  whom 
the  Prospectus  had  been  addressed.  He  well  knew  the  value  of 
such  a  compliment ;  and  therefore,  when  the  day  of  publication 
drew  near,  he  exerted  himself  to  soothe,  by  a  show  of  zealous  and 
at  the  same  time  of  delicate  and  judicious  kindness,  the  pride 
which  he  had  so  cruelly  wounded.  Since  the  "  Ramblers  "  had 
ceased  to  appear,  the  town  had  been  entertained  by  a  journal 
called  the  "  World,"  to  which  many  men  of  high  rank  and  fash- 
ion contributed.1  In  two  successive  numbers  of  the  "  World  " 
the  Dictionary  was,  to  use  the  modern  phrase,  puffed  with  won- 
derful skill.  The  writings  of  Johnson  were  warmly  praised.  It 
was  proposed  that  he  should  be  invested  with  the  authority  of 
a  dictator,  nay,  of  a  pope,  over  our  language,  and  that  his  deci- 
sions about  the  meaning  and  the  spelling  of  words  should  be 
received  as  final.  His  two  folios,  it  was  said,  would  of  course 
be  bought  by  everybody  who  could  afford  to  buy  them.  It  was 
soon  known  that  these  papers  were  written  by  Chesterfield.  But 
the  just  resentment  of  Johnson  was  not  to  be  so  appeased.  In  a 
letter2  written  with  singular  energy  and  dignity  of  thought  and 
language,  he  repelled  the  tardy  advances  of  his  patron.  The 
Dictionary  came  forth  without  a  dedication.  In  the  Preface  the 
author  truly  declared  that  he  owed  nothing  to  the  great,  and 
described  the  difficulties  with  which  he  had  been  left  to  struggle 
so  forcibly  and  pathetically,  that  the  ablest  and  most  malevolent 
of  all  the  enemies  of  his  fame,  Home  Tooke,3  never  could  read 
that  passage  without  tears. 

The  public,  on  this  occasion,  did  Johnson  full  justice,  and 
something  more  than  justice.     The  best  lexicographer  may  well 

1  Among  the  contributors  were  Chesterfield  and  Horace  ("Horry") 
Walpole  (1717-97).      The  editor  was  Edward  Moore. 

2  See  Introduction. 

3  The  assumed  name  of  John  Home  (1736-1812),  politician  and  philolo- 
gist; author  of  Diversions  of  Purley.  He  was  tried  for  high  treason,  but 
acquitted  (1794).     He  criticised  Johnson's  etymologies. 


THE   LIFE   OF  SAMUEL   JOHNSON.  45 

be  content  if  his  productions  are  received  by  the  world  with  cold 
esteem.  But  Johnson's  Dictionary  was  hailed  with  an  enthusiasm 
such  as  no  similar  work  has  ever  excited.  It  was,  indeed,  the 
first  dictionary  which  could  be  read  with  pleasure.  The  defini- ' 
tions l  show  so  much  acuteness  of  thought  and  command  of 
language,  and  the  passages  quoted  from  poets,  divines,  and  phi- 
losophers, are  so  skillfully  selected,  that  a  leisure  hour  may  always 
be  very  agreeably  spent  in  turning  over  the  pages.  The  faults 
of  the  book  resolve  themselves,  for  the  most  part,  into  one  great 
fault.  Johnson  was  a  wretched  etymologist.  He  knew  little  or 
nothing  of  any  Teutonic  language  except  English,  which,  indeed, 
as  he  wrote  it,  was  scarcely  a  Teutonic  language ;  and  thus  he 
was  absolutely  at  the  mercy  of  Junius  2  and  Skinner.3 

The  Dictionary,  though  it  raised  Johnson's  fame,  added  nothing 
to  his  pecuniary  means.  The  fifteen  hundred  guineas  which  the 
booksellers  had  agreed  to  pay  him  had  been  advanced  and  spent 
before  the  last  sheets  issued  from  the  press.  It  is  painful  to  re- 
late, that,  twice  in  the  course  of  the  year  which  followed  the  pub- 
lication of  this  great  work,  he  was  arrested  and  carried  to  spong- 
inghouses,4  and  that  he  was  twice  indebted  for  his  liberty  to  his 
excellent  friend  Richardson.5  It  was  still  necessary  for  the  man 
who  had  been  formally  saluted  by  the  highest  authority  as  dicta- 
tor of  the  English  language,  to  supply  his  wants  by  constant  toil. 
He  abridged  his  Dictionary.  He  proposed  to  bring  out  an  edi- 
tion of  Shakespeare  by  subscription  ;  and  many  subscribers  sent  in 
their  names,  and  laid  down  their  money ;  but  he  soon  found  the 

1  Many  of  the  definitions  were  inserted  in  a  spirit  of  humor  and  mischief. 
"  Lexicographer  "  he  defined  as  "  a  harmless  drudge ;  "  and  "  oats  "  as  "  a 
grain  which  in  England  is  generally  given  to  horses,  but  in  Scotland  sup- 
ports the  people." 

2  Francis  Junius  ( 1 589-1677),  student  of  the  Teutonic  languages. 

3  Dr.  Stephen  Skinner  (1623-67),  lexicographer. 

*  "  A  house  to  which  debtors  are  taken  before  commitment  to  prison, 
where  the  bailiffs  sponge  upon  them,  or  riot  at  their  cost."  —  Johnson  : 
Dictionary. 

5  See  Note  3,  p.  41. 


46  MACAU  LAY. 

task  so  little  to  his  taste  that  he  turned  to  more  attractive  employ- 
ments. He  contributed  many  papers  to  a  new  monthly  journal, 
which  was  called  the  "  Literary  Magazine."  Few  of  these  papers 
have  much  interest ;  but  among  them  was  the  very  best  thing  that 
he  ever  wrote,  a  masterpiece  both  of  reasoning  and  of  satirical 
pleasantry,  the  review  of  Jenyns's1  "  Inquiry  into  the  Nature  and 
Origin  of  Evil." 

In  the  spring  of  1758  Johnson  put  forth  the  first  of  a  series  of 
essays  entitled  the  "  Idler."  During  two  years  these  essays  con- 
tinued to  appear  weekly.  They  were  eagerly  read,  widely  circu- 
lated, and,  indeed,  impudently  pirated  while  they  were  still  in  the 
original  form,  and  had  a  large  sale  when  collected  into  volumes. 
The  "Idler"  may  be  described  as  a  second  part  of  the  "Ram- 
bler," somewhat  livelier  and  somewhat  weaker  than  the  first 
part. 

While  Johnson  was  busied  with  his  "  Idlers,"  his  mother,  who 
had  accomplished  her  ninetieth  year,  died  at  Lichfield.  It  was 
long  since  he  had  seen  her ;  but  he  had  not  failed  to  contribute 
largely,  out  of  his  small  means,  to  her  comfort.  In  order  to 
defray  the  charges  of  her  funeral,  and  to  pay  some  debts  which 
she  had  left,  he  wrote  a  little  book  in  a  single  week,  and  sent  off 
the  sheets  to  the  press  without  reading  them  over.  A  hundred 
pounds  were  paid  him  for  the  copyright ;  and  the  purchasers  had 
great  cause  to  be  pleased  with  their  bargain,  for  the  book  was 
"  Rasselas."  2 

The  success  of  "  Rasselas  "  was  great,  though  such  ladies  as 
Miss  Lydia  Languish3  must  have  been  grievously  disappointed 
when  they  found  that  the  new  volume  from  the  circulating  library 
was  little  more  than  a  dissertation  on  the  author's  favorite  theme, 
the  vanity  of  human  wishes ;  that  the  Prince  of  Abyssinia  was 
without  a  mistress,  and  the  princess  without  a  lover ;  and  that  the 
story  set  the  hero  and  the  heroine  down  exactly  where  it  had  taken 

1  Soame  Jenyns  (1704-87),  miscellaneous  writer. 

2  Rasselas;  or,  the  Prince  of  Abyssinia,  appeared  in  1759. 

3  A  sentimental  character  in  Sheridan's  Rivals. 


THE   LIFE    OF  SAMUEL   JOHNSON.  47 

them  up.  The  style  was  the  subject  of  much  eager  controversy. 
The  "Monthly  Review  "  and  the  "  Critical  Review  "  took  dif- 
ferent sides.  Many  readers  pronounced  the  writer  a  pompous 
pedant,  who  would  never  use  a  word  of  two  syllables  where  it 
was  possible  to  use  a  word  of  six,  and  who  could  not  make  a 
waiting  woman  relate  her  adventures  without  balancing  every 
noun  with  another  noun,  and  every  epithet  with  another  epithet. 
Another  party,  not  less  zealous,  cited  with  delight  numerous  pas- 
sages in  which  weighty  meaning  was  expressed  with  accuracy,  and 
illustrated  with  splendor.  And  both  the  censure  and  the  praise 
were  merited. 

About  the  plan  of  "  Rasselas  "  little  was  said  by  the  critics  ;  and 
yet  the  faults  of  the  plan  might  seem  to  invite  severe  criticism. 
Johnson  has  frequently  blamed  Shakespeare  for  neglecting  the 
proprieties  of  time  and  place,  and  for  ascribing  to  one  age  or 
nation  the  manners  and  opinions  of  another.  Yet  Shakespeare  has 
not  sinned  in  this  way  more  grievously  than  Johnson.  Rasselas 
and  Imlac,  Nekayah  and  Pekuah,1  are  evidently  meant  to  be 
Abyssinians  of  the  eighteenth  century ;  for  the  Europe  which 
Imlac  describes  is  the  Europe  of  the  eighteenth  century;  and 
the  inmates  of  the  Happy  Valley  talk  familiarly  of  that  law  of 
gravitation  which  Newton  2  discovered,  and  which  was  not  fully 
received,  even  at  Cambridge,3  till  the  eighteenth  century.  What 
a  real  company  of  Abyssinians  would  have  been  may  be  learned 
from  Bruce's4  "Travels."  But  Johnson,  not  content  with  turn- 
ing filthy  savages  ignorant  of  their  letters,  and  gorged  with  raw 
steaks  cut  from  living  cows,  into  philosophers  as  eloquent  and  en- 
lightened as  himself  or  his  friend  Burke,5  and  into  ladies  as  highly 

1  Imlac  the  poet,  Nekayah  the  princess,  and  Pekuah  the  favorite  com- 
panion of  the  princess,  are  all  characters  in  Rasselas. 

2  Sir  Isaac  Newton  (1642-1727),  greatest  of  English  mathematicians  and 
astronomers. 

3  See  Note  4,  p.  23. 

4  James  Bruce  (1730-94),  celebrated  African  traveler. 

5  Edmund  Burke  (1729-97),  orator  and  statesman;  friend  of  America. 


48  MAC  AULA  Y. 

accomplished  as  Mrs.  Lennox  '  or  Mrs.  Sheridan,-  transferred  the 
whole  domestic  system  of  England  to  Egypt.  Into  a  land  of 
harems,  a  land  of  polygamy,  a  land  where  women  are  married 
without  ever  being  seen,  he  introduced  the  flirtations  and  jealousies 
of  our  ballrooms.  In  a  land  where  there  is  boundless  liberty  of 
divorce,  wedlock  is  described  as  the  indissoluble  compact.  "A 
youth  and  maiden  meeting  by  chance,  or  brought  together  by 
artifice,  exchange  glances,  reciprocate  civilities,  go  home  and 
dream  of  each  other.  Such,"  says  Rasselas,  "is  the  common 
process  of  marriage."  Such  it  may  have  been,  and  may  still  be, 
in  London,  but  assuredly  not  at  Cairo.  A  writer  who  was  guilty 
of  such  improprieties  had  little  right  to  blame  the  poet  who  made 
Hector  quote  Aristotle,3  and  represented  Julio  Romano4  as  flour- 
ishing in  the  days  of  the  oracle  of  Delphi. 

By  such  exertions  as  have  been  described,  Johnson  supported 
himself  till  the  year  1762.  In  that  year  a  great  change  in  his 
circumstances  took  place.  He  had  from  a  child  been  an  enemy 
of  the  reigning  dynasty.  '  His  Jacobite  prejudices  had  been  ex- 
hibited with  little  disguise  both  in  his  works  and  in  his  conversa- 
tion. Even  in  his  massy  and  elaborate  Dictionary,  he  had,  with 
a  strange  want  of  taste  and  judgment,  inserted  bitter  and  con- 
tumelious reflections  on  the  Whig  party.  The  excise,  which  was 
a  favorite  resource  of  Whig  financiers,  he  had  designated  as  a 
hateful  tax.  He  had  railed  against  the  commissioners  of  excise 
in  language  so  coarse  that  they  had  seriously  thought  of  prosecut- 
ing him.     He  had  with  difficulty  been  prevented  from  holding 

1  Mrs.  Charlotte  Ramsay  Lennox  (1 720-1804),  author  of  Female  Quixote, 
and  Life  of  Harriet  Stuart. 

2  Mrs.  Frances  Sheridan  (1724-66),  mother  of  the  dramatist;  author  of 
Memoirs  of  Miss  Sidney  Biddulph. 

3  Shakespeare  (see  Troilus  and  Cressida,  act  ii.  sc.  2).  Hector  was  the 
Trojan  hero  in  the  traditional  siege  of  Troy;  and  Aristotle  (died,  322  B.C.), 
the  most  famous  of  the  Greek  philosophers. 

*  See  Winter's  Tale,  act  v.  sc.  2.  Giulio  Romano  (1492-1546)  was  a 
celebrated  Italian  painter.  The  oracle  of  Apollo  at  Delphi  (Phocis,  Greece) 
was  famous  in  antiquity. 


THE  LIFE    OF  SAMUEL   JOHNSON.  49 

up  the  lord  privy  seal1  by  name  as  an  example  of  the  meaning 
of  the  word  "  renegade."  A  pension  he  had  defined  as  pay  given 
to  a  state  hireling  to  betray  his  country ;  a  pensioner,  as  a  slave 
of  state  hired  by  a  stipend  to  obey  a  master.  It  seemed  unlikely 
that  the  author  of  these  definitions  would  himself  be  pensioned. 
But  that  was  a  time  of  wonders.  George  III.  had  ascended  the 
throne,2  and  had,  in  the  course  of  a  few  months,  disgusted  many 
of  the  old  friends,  and  conciliated  many  of  the  old  enemies,  of  his 
house.  The  city  was  becoming  mutinous.  Oxford  was  becom- 
ing loyal.  Cavendishes  and  Bentincks  were  murmuring.  Somer- 
sets and  Wyndhams3  were  hastening  to  kiss  hands.  The  head 
of  the  treasury  was  now  Lord  Bute,4  who  was  a  Tory,  and  could 
have  no  objection  to  Johnson's  Toryism.  Bute  wished  to  be 
thought  a  patron  of  men  of  letters ;  and  Johnson  was  one  of  the 
most  eminent  and  one  of  the  most  needy  men  of  letters  in  Europe. 
A  pension  of  three  hundred  a  year  was  graciously  offered,  and 
with  very  little  hesitation  accepted. 

This  event  produced  a  change  in  Johnson's  whole  way  of  life. 
For  the  first  time  since  his  boyhood,  he  no  longer  felt  the  daily 
goad  urging  him  to  the  daily  toil.  He  was  at  liberty,  after  thirty 
years  of  anxiety  and  drudgery,  to  indulge  his  constitutional  indo- 
lence, to  lie  in  bed  till  two  in  the  afternoon,  and  to  sit  up  talking 
till  four  in  the  morning,  without  fearing  either  the  printer's  devil 
or  the  sheriff's  officer.      • 

One  laborious  task,  indeed,  he  had  bound  himself  to  perform. 

1  The  custodian  of  the  privy  seal,  which  is  affixed  to  minor  documents,  and 
which  is  also  used  in  connection  with  the  great  seal  of  the  government  (the 
chief  emblem  of  sovereignty).  Johnson  added  to  the  definition  of  "  renegade  " 
the  words,  "  Sometimes  we  say  a  Gower;"  but  they  were  struck  out  by  the 
printer. 

2  1760. 

3  The  Cavendishes  and  Bentincks  were  representative  Whig,  and  the 
Somersets  and  Wyndhams  representative  Tory  families.  On  the  death  of 
Queen  Anne  (1714),  Sir  William  Wyndham  built  up  a  Jacobite  party. 

4  Earl  of  Bute  (1713-92),  acourt  favorite,  and  puppet  of  George  III.  He 
became  premier  in  1762. 

4 


50  MACAULAY. 

He  had  received  large  subscriptions  for  his  promised  edition  of 
Shakespeare ;  he  had  lived  on  those  subscriptions  during  some 
years ;  and  he  could  not,  without  disgrace,  omit  to  perform  his 
part  of  the  contract.  His  friends  repeatedly  exhorted  him  to 
make  an  effort ;  and  he  repeatedly  resolved  to  do  so.  But,  not- 
withstanding their  exhortations  and  his  resolutions,  month  fol- 
lowed month,  year  followed  year,  and  nothing  was  done.  He 
prayed  fervently  against  his  idleness ;  he  determined,  as  often  as 
he  received  the  sacrament,  that  he  would  no  longer  doze  away 
and  trifle  away  his  time ;  but  the  spell  under  which  he  lay  re- 
sisted prayer  and  sacrament.  His  private  notes  at  this  time  are 
made  up  of  self-reproaches.  "  My  indolence,"  he  wrote  on  Easter 
Eve  in  1764,  "has  sunk  into  grosser  sluggishness.  A  kind  of 
strange  oblivion  has  overspread  me,  so  that  I  know  not  what  has 
become  of  the  last  year."  Easter,  1765,  came,  and  found  him 
still  in  the  same  state.  "  My  time,"  he  wrote,  "has  been  unprofit- 
ably  spent,  and  seems  as  a  dream  that  has  left  nothing  behind. 
My  memory  grows  confused,  and  I  know  not  how  the  days  pass 
over  me."  Happily  for  his  honor,  the  charm  which  held  him 
captive  was  at  length  broken  by  no  gentle  or  friendly  hand.  He 
had  been  weak  enough  to  pay  serious  attention  to  a  story  about 
a  ghost  which  haunted  a  house  in  Cock  Lane,1  and  had  actually 
gone  himself,  with  some  of  his  friends,  at  one  in  the  morning,  to 
St.  John's  Church,  Clerkenwell,2  in  the  hope  of  receiving  a  com- 
munication from  the  perturbed  spirit.  But  the  spirit,  though  ad- 
jured with  all  solemnity,  remained  obstinately  silent ;  and  it  soon 
appeared  that  a  naughty  girl  of  eleven  had  been  amusing  herself 
by  making  fools  of  so  many  philosophers.    Churchill,3  who,  con- 

1  This  story  was  woven  about  the  adventures  of  a  young  girl  in  Cock 
Lane,  London  (1762),  who  pretended  to  be  in  communication  with  the  world 
of  spirits.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Johnson  assisted  in  detecting  the  im- 
posture. 

2  A  northern  district  of  London. 

3  Charles  Churchill  (1731-64),  poet  and  wit.  He  has  all  the  bitterness  ot 
Pope. 


THE   LIFE    OF  SAMUEL   JOHNSON.  51 

fident  in  his  powers,  drunk  with  popularity,  and  burning  with 
party  spirit,  was  looking  for  some  man  of  established  fame  and 
Tory  politics  to  insult,  celebrated  the  Cock  Lane  ghost  in  three 
cantos,  nicknamed  Johnson  Pomposo,  asked  where  the  book  was 
which  had  been  so  long  promised  and  so  liberally  paid  for,  and 
directly  accused  the  great  moralist  of  cheating.  This  terrible 
word  proved  effectual;  and  in  October,  1765,  appeared,  after  a 
delay  of  nine  years,  the  new  edition  of  Shakespeare. 

This  publication  saved  Johnson's  character  for  honesty,  but 
added  nothing  to  the  fame  of  his  abilities  and  learning.  The 
preface,  though  it  contains  some  good  passages,  is  not  in  his  best 
manner.  The  most  valuable  notes  are  those  in  which  he  had  an 
opportunity  of  showing  how  attentively  he  had,  during  many 
years,  observed  human  life  and  human  nature.  The  best  speci- 
men is  the  note  on  the  character  of  Polonius.1  Nothing  so  good 
is  to  be  found  even  in  Wilhelm  Meister's 2  admirable  examination 
of  Hamlet.  But  here  praise  must  end.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
name  a  more  slovenly,  a  more '  worthless,  edition  of  any  great 
classic.  The  reader  may  turn  over  play  after  play  without  find- 
ing one  happy  conjectural  emendation,  or  one  ingenious  and 
satisfactory  explanation  of  a  passage  which  had  baffled  preceding 
commentators.  Johnson  had,  in  his  Prospectus,  told  the  world 
that  he  was  peculiarly  fitted  for  the  task  which  he  had  undertaken, 
because  he  had,  as  a  lexicographer,  been  under  the  necessity  of 
taking  a  wider  view  of  the  English  language  than  any  of  his  pred- 
ecessors. That  his  knowledge  of  our  literature  was  extensive, 
is  indisputable.  But,  unfortunately,  he  had  altogether  neglected 
that  very  part  of  our  literature  with  which  it  is  especially  desir- 
able that  an  editor  of  Shakespeare  should  be  conversant.  It  is 
dangerous  to  assert  a  negative.  Yet  little  will  be  risked  by  the 
assertion,  that  in  the  two  folio  volumes  of  the  "  English  Diction- 
ary "  there  is  not  a  single  passage  quoted  from  any  dramatist  of 

1  The  royal  chamberlain  in  Hamlet ;  the  father  of  Ophelia. 

2  Wilhelm  Meister's  Lehrjahre,  by  Johann  Wolfgang  von  Goethe  (1749- 
1832),  whose  name  is  the  greatest  in  German  literature  (see  Bk.  IV.  xiii.). 


52  MACAULAY. 

the  Elizabethan  age,1  except  Shakespeare  and  Ben.2  Even  from 
Ben  the  quotations  are  few.  Johnson  might  easily,  in  a  few 
months,  have  made  himself  well  acquainted  with  every  old  play 
that  was  extant.  But  it  never  seems  to  have  occurred  to  him 
that  this  was  a  necessary  preparation  for  the  work  which  he  had 
undertaken.  He  would  doubtless  have  admitted  that  it  would 
be  the  height  of  absurdity  in  a  man  who  was  not  familiar  with 
the  works  of  ^Eschylus  and  Euripides  to  publish  an  edition  of 
Sophocles.3  Yet  he  ventured  to  publish  an  edition  of  Shake- 
speare without  having  ever  in  his  life,  as  far  as  can  be  discovered, 
read  a  single  scene  of  Massinger,4  Ford,  Dekker,  Webster,  Mar- 
lowe, Beaumont,  or  Fletcher.  His  detractors  were  noisy  and 
scurrilous.  Those  who  most  loved  and  honored  him  had  little  to 
say  in  praise  of  the  manner  in  which  he  had  discharged  the  duty 
of  a  commentator.  He  had,  however,  acquitted  himself  of  a  debt 
which  had  long  lain  heavy  on  his  conscience,  and  he  sank  back 
into  the  repose  from  which  the  sting  of  satire  had  roused  him. 
He  long  continued  to  live  upon  the  fame  which  he  had  already 
won.     He  was  honored  by  the  University  of  Oxford  with  a  doc- 

1  This  great  age  of  English  poetry  ended,  strictly  speaking,  with  the  death 
of  Queen  Elizabeth,  in  1603;  but  the  name  is  extended  to  cover  the  period 
up  to  the  Restoration  (1660). 

2  "  Rare  Ben  Jonson  "  ( 1 573—1637),  the  most  famous  of  the  dramatists 
contemporary  with  Shakespeare. 

3  /Eschylus  (died,  456  B.C.),  Sophocles  (died,  406  B.C.),  and  Euripides 
(died,  406  B.C.)  were  the  three  great  tragic  poets  of  Greece. 

4  Here  follows  a  list  of  the  most  famous  Elizabethan  and  Stuart  dramatists  : 
Philip  Massinger  (1584-1640),  author  of  A  New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts; 
John  Ford  (1586  to  about  1639),  author  of  Broken  Heart  and  Perkin  War- 
beck;  Thomas  Dekker  (about  1570  to  about  1637) ;  John  Webster,  a  dram- 
atist of  "intense  and  somber  genius,"  who  wrote  Duchess  of  Malfi  and 
VittoriaCorombona;  Christopher  Marlowe  (1564-93),  an  early  contemporary 
of  Shakespeare,  and  author  of  Tamburlaine  (in  which  he  popularized  blank 
verse),  Edward  II.,  and  Dr.  Faustus  ;  and  Francis  Beaumont  (15S4-1616) 
and  his  collaborator  John  Fletcher  (1579-1625).  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  the 
most  important  of  the  Stuart  dramatists,  produced  in  the  reign  of  James  I. 
fifty-three  plays,  only  thirteen  being  joint  productions. 


THE   LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  JOHNSON.  53 

tor's  degree,  by  the  Royal  Academy  l  with  a  professorship,  and 
by  the  King  with  an  interview,  in  which  his  Majesty  most  gra- 
ciously expressed  a  hope  that  so  excellent  a  writer  would  not 
cease  to  write.  In  the  interval,  however,  between  1765  and  1775, 
Johnson  published  only  two  or  three  political  tracts,  the  longest 
of  which  he  could  have  produced  in  forty-eight  hours,  if  he  had 
worked  as  he  worked  on  the  "  Life  of  Savage  "  and  on  "  Rasselas." 
But,  though  his  pen  was  now  idle,  his  tongue  was  active.  The 
influence  exercised  by  his  conversation,  directly  upon  those  with 
whom  he  lived,  and  indirectly  on  the  whole  literary  world,  was 
altogether  without  a  parallel.  His  colloquial  talents  were,  indeed, 
of  the  highest  order.  He  had  strong  sense,  quick  discernment, 
wit,  humor,  immense  knowledge  of  literature  and  of  life,  and  an 
infinite  store  of  curious  anecdotes.  As  respected  style,  he  spoke 
far  better  than  he  wrote.  Every  sentence  which  dropped  from 
his  lips  was  as  correct  in  structure  as  the  most  nicely  balanced 
period  of  the  "  Rambler."  But  in  his  talk  there  were  no  pompous 
triads,  and  little  more  than  a  fair  proportion  of  words  in  "  osity  " 
and  "ation."  All  was  simplicity,  ease,  and  vigor.  He  uttered 
his  short,  weighty,  and  pointed  sentences  with  a  power  of  voice 
and  a  justness  and  energy  of  emphasis  of  which  the  effect  was 
rather  increased  than  diminished  by  the  rollings  of  his  huge  form, 
and  by  the  asthmatic  gaspings  and  puffings  in  which  the  peals 
of  his  eloquence  generally  ended.  Nor  did  the  laziness  which 
made  him  unwilling  to  sit  down  to  his  desk  prevent  him  from 
giving  instruction  or  entertainment  orally-  To  discuss  ques- 
tions of  taste,  of  learning,  of  casuistry,  in  language  so  exact 
and  so  forcible  that  it  might  have  been  printed  without  the  alter- 
ation of  a  word,  was  to  him  no  exertion,  but  a  pleasure.  He 
loved,  as  he  said,  to  fold  his  legs  and  have  his  talk  out.  He  was 
ready  to  bestow  the  overflowings  of  his  full  mind  on  anybody  who 
would  start  a  subject,  — on  a  fellow-passenger  in  a  stagecoach,  or 

l  The  Royal  Academy  of  Arts,  instituted  under  the  patronage  of  George 
III.,  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  being  the  first  president.  Its  first  meeting  was 
held  in  1768. 


54  MACAULAY. 

on  the  person  who  sat  at  the  same  table  with  him  in  an  eating 
house.      But  his  conversation  was  nowhere  so  brilliant  and  strik- 
ing as  when  he  was  surrounded  by  a  few  friends,  whose  abilities 
and  knowledge  enabled  them,  as  he  once  expressed  it,  to  send 
him  back  every  ball  that  he  threw.      Some  of  these,  in   1764, 
formed  themselves  into  a  club,1  which  gradually  became  a  formi- 
dable power  in  the  commonwealth  of  letters.     The  verdicts  pro- 
nounced by  this  conclave  on  new  books  were  speedily  known 
over  all  London,  and  were  sufficient  to  sell  off  a  whole  edition  in 
a  day,  or  to  condemn  the  sheets  to  the  service  of  the  trunk  maker 
and  the  pastry  cook.      Nor  shall  we  think  this  strange  when  we 
consider  what  great  and  various  talents  and  acquirements  met  in 
the  little  fraternity.     Goldsmith  2  was  the  representative  of  poetry 
and  light  literature ;  Reynolds,3  of  the  arts ;  Burke,  of  political 
eloquence  and  political  philosophy.     There,  too,  were  Gibbon,4 
the  greatest  historian,  and  Jones,5  the  greatest  linguist,  of  the  age. 
Garrick  brought  to  the  meetings  his  inexhaustible  pleasantry,  his 
incomparable  mimicry,  and  his  consummate  knowledge  of  stage 
effect.     Among  the  most  constant  attendants  were  two  high-born 
and  high-bred  gentlemen,  closely  bound  together  by  friendship, 
but  of  widely  different  characters  and  habits,— Bennet  Langton,6 
distinguished  by  his  skill  in  Greek  literature,  by  the  orthodoxy  of 
his  opinions,  and  by  the  sanctity  of  his  life  ;  and  Topham  Beauclerk,7 

1  The  Literary  Club,  which  met  at  the  Turk's  Head,  Soho. 

2  Oliver  Goldsmith  (1728-74),  poet,  novelist,  and  dramatist.  His  Vicar 
of  Wakefield  is  a  famous  classic. 

3  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  (1723-92),  one  of  the  most  famous  of  English 
portrait  painters. 

4  Edward  Gibbon  (1737-94),  author  of  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire. 

5  Sir  William  Jones  (1746-94),  scholar,  Oriental  linguist,  and  jurist. 

6  A  scholar  of  amiable  character  (1737-1801),  greatly  beloved  by  Johnson. 
He  succeeded  Johnson  as  professor  of  ancient  literature  at  the  Royal 
Academy. 

7  Son  of  Lord  Sidney  Iieauclerk,  and  grandson  of  the  Duke  of  St.  Albans 
(1739-80);  "commended  to  Johnson  by  a  likeness  to  Charles  II.,  from 
whom  he  was  descended." 


THE   LIFE    Of  SAMUEL   JOHNSON.  55 

renowned  for  his  amours,  his  knowledge  of  the  gay  world,  his 
fastidious  taste,  and  his  sarcastic  wit.  To  predominate  over 
such  a  society  was  not  easy.  Yet  even  over  such  a  society  John- 
son predominated.  .  Burke  might,  indeed,  have  disputed  the  su- 
premacy to  which  others  were  under  the  necessity  of  submitting. 
But  Burke,  though  not  generally  a  very  patient  listener,  was  con- 
tent to  take  the  second  part  when  Johnson  was  present ;  and  the 
club  itself,  consisting  of  so  many  eminent  men,  is  to  this  day 
popularly  designated  as  Johnson's  Club. 

Among  the  members  of  this  celebrated  body  was  one  to  whom 
it  has  owed  the  greater  part  of  its  celebrity,  yet  who  was  regarded 
with  little  respect  by  his  brethren,  and  had  not  without  difficulty 
obtained  a  seat  among  them.  This  was  James  Boswell,1  a  young 
Scotch  lawyer,  heir  to  an  honorable  name  and  a  fair  estate. 
That  he  was  a  coxcomb  and  a  bore,  weak,  vain,  pushing,  curious, 
garrulous,  was  obvious  to  all  who  were  acquainted  with  him. 
That  he  could  not  reason,  that  he  had  no  wit,  no  humor,  no  elo- 
quence, is  apparent  from  his  writings.  And  yet  his  writings  are 
read  beyond  the  Mississippi  and  under  the  Southern  Cross,'2  and 
are  likely  to  be  read  as  long  as  the  English  exists,  either  as  a  liv- 
ing or  as  a  dead  language.  Nature  had  made  him  a  slave  and  an 
idolater.  His  mind  resembled  those  creepers  which  the  botanists 
call  parasites,  and  which  can  subsist  only  by  clinging  round  the 
stems,  and  imbibing  the  juices,  of  stronger  plants.  He  must  have 
fastened  himself  on  somebody.  He  might  have  fastened  himself 
on  Wilkes,3  and  have  become  the  fiercest  patriot  in  the  Bill  of 

1  See  Introduction. 

2  A  small  brilliant  constellation  of  the  southern  hemisphere,  so  called  from 
the  arrangement  of  its  four  principal  stars. 

3  John  Wilkes  (1727-97),  editor  of  the  North  Briton;  several  times  ex- 
pelled from  Parliament,  and  reelected  from  Middlesex.  Though  a  notorious 
demagogue,  he  was  nevertheless  among  the  first  to  establish  the  right  of  the 
press  to  discuss  parliamentary  proceedings  and  public  affairs,  and  he  became 
for  a  time  the  popular  idol.  The  Society  for  the  Support  of  the  Bill  of 
Rights  (1769)  was  founded  to  help  Wilkes  in  his  constitutional  struggle  with 
Parliament. 


56  MAC  ALLAY. 

Rights  Society.  He  might  have  fastened  himself  on  Whitefield,1 
and  have  become  the  loudest  field  preacher  among  the  Calvinistic 
Methodists.  In  a  happy  hour  he  fastened  himself  on  Johnson. 
The  pair  might  seem  ill-matched.  For  Johnson  had  early  been 
prejudiced  against  Boswell's  country.  To  a  man  of  Johnson's 
strong  understanding  and  irritable  temper,  the  silly  egotism  and 
adulation  of  Boswell  must  have  been  as  teasing  as  the  constant 
buzz  of  a  fly.  Johnson  hated  to  be  questioned  ;  and  Boswell  was 
eternally  catechising  him  on  all  kinds  of  subjects,  and  sometimes 
propounded  such  questions  as,  "  What  would  you  do,  sir,  if  you 
were  locked  up  in  a  tower  with  a  baby?  "  Johnson  was  a  water 
drinker,  and  Boswell  was  a  winebibber,  and,  indeed,  little  better 
than  an  habitual  sot.  It  was  impossible  that  there  should  be  per- 
fect harmony  between  two  such  companions.  Indeed,  the  great 
man  was  sometimes  provoked  into  fits  of  passion,  in  which  he 
said  things  which  the  small  man,  during  a  few  horurs,  seriously 
resented.  Every  quarrel,  however,  was  soon  made  up.  During 
twenty  years,  the  disciple  continued  to  worship  the  master:  the 
master  continued  to  scold  the  disciple,  to  sneer  at  him,  and  to 
love  him.  The  two  friends  ordinarily  resided  at  a  great  distance 
from  each  other.  Boswell  practiced  in  the  Parliament  House  of 
Edinburgh,  and  could  pay  only  occasional  visits  to  London. 
During  those  visits,  his  chief  business  was  to  watch  Johnson,  to 
discover  all  Johnson's  habits,  to  turn  the  conversation  to  subjects 
about  which  Johnson  was  likely  to  say  something  remarkable,  and 
to  fill  quarto  notebooks  with  minutes  of  what  Johnson  had  said.  In 
this  way  were  gathered  the  materials  out  of  which  was  afterwards 
constructed  the  most  interesting  biographical  work  -  in  the  world. 
Soon  after  the  club  began  to  exist,  Johnson  formed  a  connec- 

1  George  Whitefield  (1714-70),  the  great  preacher  of  the  Methodist  revival. 
Wesley,  the  head  of  the  Methodists,  broke  with  Whitefield,  who  had 
"  plunged  into  an  extravagant  Calvinism,"  and  who  became  the  founder  of 
the  sect  called  "  Calvinistic  Methodists."  Whitefield,  as  a  follower  of  John 
Calvin  (1509-64),  accepted  the  doctrine  of  predestination. 

2  See  Dr.  Birkbeck  Hill's  edition  (1887,  6  vols.). 


THE  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  JOHNSON.  57 

tion  less  important,  indeed,  to  his  fame,  but  much  more  impor- 
tant to  his  happiness,  than  his  connection  with  Boswell.  Henry 
Thrale,  one  of  the  most  opulent  brewers  in  the  kingdom,  a  man 
of  sound  and  cultivated  understanding,  rigid  principles,  and  liberal 
spirit,  was  married  to  one  of  those  clever,  kind-hearted,  engaging, 
vain,  pert  young  women  who  are  perpetually  doing  or  saying  what 
is  not  exactly  right,  but  who,  do  or  say  what  they  may,  are  always 
agreeable.1  In  1765  the  Thrales  became  acquainted -with  John- 
son, and  the  acquaintance  ripened  fast  into  friendship.  They 
were  astonished  and  delighted  by  the  brilliancy  of  his  conversa- 
tion. They  were  flattered  by  finding  that  a  man  so  widely  cele- 
brated preferred  their  house  to  any  other  in  London.  Even  the 
peculiarities  which  seemed  to  unfit  him  for  civilized  society — his 
gesticulations,  his  rollings,  his  puffings,  his  mutterings,  the  strange 
way  in  which  he  put  on  his  clothes,  the  ravenous  eagerness  with 
which  he  devoured  his  dinner,  his  fits  of  melancholy,  his  fits  of 
anger,  his  frequent  rudeness,  his  occasional  ferocity — increased 
the  interest  which  his  new  associates  took  in  him.  For  these 
things  were  the  cruel  marks  left  behind  by  a  life  which  had  been 
one  long  conflict  with  disease  and  with  adversity.v  In  a  vulgar 
hack  writer,  such  oddities  would  have  excited  only  disgust ;  but 
in  a  man  of  genius,  learning,  and  virtue,  their  effect  was  to  add 
pity  to  admiration  and  esteem.  Johnson  soon  had  an  apartment 
at  the  brewery  in  Southwark,  and  a  still  more  pleasant  apart- 
ment at  the  villa  of  his  friends  on  Streatham  Common.  A  large 
part  of  every  year  he  passed  in  those  abodes, — abodes  which  must 
have  seemed  magnificent  and  luxurious  indeed,  when  compared 
with  the  dens  in  which  he  had  generally  been  lodged.  But  his 
chief  pleasures  were  derived  from  what  the  astronomer  of  his 
Abyssinian  tale  called  "  the  endearing  elegance  of  female  friend- 
ship."    Mrs.  Thrale  rallied  him,  soothed  him,  coaxed  him,  and, 

1  In  1763,  Hester  Lynch  Salisbury  (1741-1821)  married  Henry  Thrale, 
member  of  Parliament  for  Southwark.  After  Thrale's  death  (1781),  she 
married  Gabriel  Piozzi,  an  Italian  music  teacher.  Her  Anecdotes  of  Johnson 
appeared  in  1786. 


58  MACAU  LAY. 

if  she  sometimes  provoked  him  by  her  flippancy,  made  ample 
amends  by  listening  to  his  reproofs  with  angelic  sweetness  of 
temper.  When  he  was  diseased  in  body  and  in  mind,  she  was 
the  most  tender  of  nurses.  No  comfort  that  wealth  could  pur- 
chase, no  contrivance  that  womanly  ingenuity,  set  to  work  by 
womanly  compassion,  could  devise,  was  wanting  to  his  sick  room. 
He  requited  her  kindness  by  an  affection  pure  as  the  affection 
of  a  father,  yet  delicately  tinged  with  a  gallantry  which,  though 
awkward,  must  have  been  more  flattering  than  the  attentions  of 
a  crowd  of  the  fools  who  gloried  in  the  names,  now  obsolete,  of 
buck  and  maccaroni.1  It  should  seem  that  a  full  half  of  John- 
son's life,  during  about  sixteen  years,  was  passed  under  the  roof 
of  the  Thrales.  He  accompanied  the  family  sometimes  to  Bath,2 
and  sometimes  to  Brighton,3  once  to  Wales,  and  once  to  Paris.4 
But  he  had  at  the  same  time  a  house  in  one  of  the  narrow  and 
gloomy  courts5  on  the  north  of  Fleet  Street.  In  the  garrets  was 
his  library,  a  large  and  miscellaneous  collection  of  books,  falling 
to  pieces,  and  begrimed  with  dust.  On  a  lower  floor  he  some- 
times, but  very  rarely,  regaled  a  friend  with  a  plain  dinner,  —  a 
veal  pie,  or  a  leg  of  lamb  and  spinach,  and  a  rice  pudding.  Nor 
was  the  dwelling  uninhabited  during  his  long  absences.  It  was 
the  home  of  the  most  extraordinary  assemblage  of  inmates  that 
ever  was  brought  together.  At  the  head  of  the  establishment, 
Johnson  had  placed  an  old  lady  named  Williams,  whose  chief 
recommendations  were  her  blindness  and  her  poverty.  But,  in 
spite  of  her  murmurs  and  reproaches,  he  gave  an  asylum  to  an- 
other lady  who  was  as  poor  as  herself,  Mrs.  Desmoulins,  whose 
family  he  had  known  many  years  before  in  Staffordshire.    Room 

1  Fop  or  dandy  (see  Century  Dictionary). 

2  One  of  the  leading  watering  places  of  England ;  especially  noted  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  when  Beau  Nash  was  master  of  ceremonies,  or  "  King 
of  Bath  "  (see  Goldsmith's  Life  of  Richard  Nash). 

3  On  the  English  Channel ;  now  the  leading  seaside  resort  in  Great 
Britain.  i  In  1775. 

5  Bolt  Court,  where  Johnson  lived  from  1776  up  to  the  time  of  his  death. 


THE   LIFE    OF  SAMUEL  JOHNSON.  59 

was  found  for  the  daughter  of  Mrs.  Desmoulins,  and  for  another 
destitute  damsel,  who  was  generally  addressed  as  Miss  Carmichael, 
but  whom  her  generous  host  called  Polly.  An  old  quack  doctor 
named  Levett,  who  bled  and  dosed  coal  heavers  and  hackney 
coachmen,  and  received  for  fees  crusts  of  bread,  bits  of  bacon, 
glasses  of  gin,  and  sometimes  a  little  copper,  completed  this 
strange  menagerie.  All  these  poor  creatures  were  at  constant 
war  with  each  other  and  with  Johnson's  negro  servant  Frank. 
Sometimes,  indeed,  they  transferred  their  hostilities  from  the  serv- 
ant to  the  master,  complained  that  a  better  table  was  not  kept 
for  them,  and  railed  or  maundered  till  their  benefactor  was  glad 
to  make  his  escape  to  Streatham,  or  to  the  Mitre  Tavern.1  And 
yet  he,  who  was  generally  the  haughtiest  and  most  irritable  of 
mankind,  who  was  but  too  prompt  to  resent  anything  which 
looked  like  a  slight  on  the  part  of  a  purse-proud  bookseller,  or  of 
a  noble  and  powerful  patron,  bore  patiently  from  mendicants, 
who  but  for  his  bounty  must  have  gone  to  the  workhouse,  in- 
sults more  provoking  than  those  for  which  he  had  knocked  down 
Osborne,2  and  bidden  defiance  to  Chesterfield.  Year  after  year 
Mrs.  Williams  and  Mrs.  Desmoulins,  Polly  and  Levett,  continued 
to  torment  him  and  to  live  upon  him. 

The  course  of  life  which  has  been  described  was  interrupted  in 
Johnson's  sixty-fourth  year  by  an  important  event.  He  had 
early  read  an  account  of  the  Hebrides,  and  had  been  much  in- 
terested by  learning  that  there  was  so  near  him  a  land  peopled 
by  a  race  which  was  still  as  rude  and  simple  as  in  the  middle 
ages.3     A  wish  to  become  intimately  acquainted  with  a  state  of 

i  The  celebrated  tavern  in  Fleet  Street,  London,  where  Boswell  and 
Johnson  frequently  met,  and  where  they  planned  the  famous  tour  to  the 
Hebrides. 

2  Thomas  Osborne,  a  bookseller  in  Cray's  Tnn,  satirized  in  the  Dunciad 
(Book  II.  167).  "  ITe  was  impertinent  to  me,"  said  Johnson,  "  and  I  beat 
him.      But  it  was  not  in  his  shop;    it  was  in  my  own  chamber." 

3  The  middle  ages  include  the  interval  from  the  close  of  the  fourth 
century  to  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century,  when  the  modern  era 
began. 


60  MAC  A  CLAY. 

society  so  utterly  unlike  all  that  he  had  ever  seen,  frequently 
crossed  his  mind.  But  it  is  not  probable  that  his  curiosity  would 
have  overcome  his  habitual  sluggishness  and  his  love  of  the 
smoke,  the  mud,  and  the  cries  of  London,  had  not  Boswell  im- 
portuned him  to  attempt  the  adventure,  and  offered  to  be  his 
squire.1  At  length,  in  August,  1773,  Johnson  crossed  the  High- 
land line,  and  plunged  courageously  into  what  was  then  consid- 
ered, by  most  Englishmen,  as  a  dreary  and  perilous  wilderness. 
After  wandering  about  two  months  through  the  Celtic2  region, 
sometimes  in  rude  boats  which  did  not  protect  him  from  the  rain, 
and  sometimes  on  small  shaggy  ponies  which  could  hardly  bear 
his  weight,  he  returned  to  his  old  haunts  with  a  mind  full  of  new 
images  and  new  theories.  During  the  f<  dlowing  year  he  employed 
himself  in  recording  his  adventures.  About  the  beginning  of 
1775,  his  "Journey  to  the  Hebrides"  was  published,  and  was, 
during  some  weeks,  the  chief  subject  of  com  ersation  in  all  circles 
in  which  any  attention  was  paid  to  literature.  The  book  is  still 
read  with  pleasure.  The  narrative  is  entertaining ;  the  specula- 
tions, whether  sound  or  unsound,  are  always  ingenious ;  and  the 
style,  though  too  stiff  and  pompous,  is  somewhat  easier  and  more 
graceful  than  that  of  his  early  writings.  His  prejudice  against 
the  Scotch  had  at  length  become  little  more  than  matter  of  jest; 
and  whatever  remained  of  the  old  feeling  had  been  effectually 
removed  by  the  kind  and  respectful  hospitality  with  which  he  had 
been  received  in  every  part  of  Scotland.  It  was,  of  course,  not 
to  be  expected  that  an  Oxonian  Tory  should  praise  the  Presby- 
terian polity  and  ritual,  or  that  an  eye  accustomed  to  the  hedge- 
rows and  parks  of  England  should  not  be  slruck  by  the  bareness 
of  Berwickshire  and  East  Lothian.3  But  even  in  censure  John- 
son's tone  is  not  unfriendly.     The  most  enlightened  Scotchmen, 

1  A  term  of  chivalry  for  an  attendant  on  a  knight ;   used  here  in  the  gen- 
eral sense  of  "  escort." 

2  The   Highlanders  of  Scotland  are  called  "  Celtic"  from  the  kinship  of 
their  language  to  that  of  the  Irish,  the  Welsh,  and  the  Britons. 

3  Counties  in  southeastern  Scotland. 


THE   LIFE    OF  SAMUEL  JOHNSON.  61 

with  Lord  Mansfield  !  at  their  head,  were  well  pleased.  But  some 
foolish  and  ignorant  Scotchmen  were  moved  to  anger  by  a  little 
unpalatable  truth  which  was  mingled  with  much  eulogy,  and  as- 
sailed him  whom  they  chose  to  consider  as  the  enemy  of  their 
country  with  libels  much  more  dishonorable  to  their  country  than 
anything  that  he  had  ever  said  or  written.  They  published  para- 
graphs in  the  newspapers,  articles  in  the  magazines,  sixpenny 
pamphlets,  five-shilling  books.  One  scribbler  abused  Johnson 
for  being  blear-eyed ;  another  for  being  a  pensioner ;  a  third 
informed  the  world  that  one  of  the  doctor's  uncles  had  been 
convicted  of  felony  in  Scotland,  and  had  found  that  there  was 
in  that  country  one  tree  capable  of  supporting  the  weight  of  an 
Englishman.  Macpherson,2  whose  "  Fingal "  had  been  proved 
in  the  "Journey"  to  be  an  impudent  forgery,  threatened  to  take 
vengeance  with  a  cane.  The  only  effect  of  this  threat  was  that 
Johnson  reiterated  the  charge  of  forgery  in  the  most  contemptuous 
terms,  and  walked  about,  during  some  time,  with  a  cudgel,  which, 
if  the  impostor  had  not  been  too  wise  to  encounter  it,  would 
assuredly  have  descended  upon  him,  to  borrow  the  sublime 
language  of  his  own  epic  poem,  "  like  a  hammer  on  the  red  son 
of  the  furnace." 

Of  other  assailants,  Johnson  took  no  notice  whatever.  He  had 
early  resolved  never  to  be  drawn  into  controversy ;  and  he 
adhered  to  his  resolution  with  a  steadfastness  which  is  the  more 
extraordinary  because  he  was,  both  intellectually  and  morally,  of 
the  stuff  of  which  controversialists  are  made.  In  conversation, 
he  was  a  singularly  eager,  acute,  and  pertinacious  disputant. 
When  at  a  loss  for  good  reasons,  he  had  recourse  to  sophistry  ; 
and  when  heated  by  altercation,  he  made  unsparing  use  of  sarcasm 

1  A  celebrated  jurist  and  statesman  (l7°5_93)- 

2  James  Macpherson  (1736-96)  published  some  poems,  including  the 
epic  Fingal,  which  professed  to  he  translations  of  the  works  of  Ossian,  a 
Gaelic  hard  of  the  third  century.  The  modern  opinion  is,  that  these  "  relics 
of  ancient  <  Vltic  literature  "  were  largely  original  with  Macpherson.  (See 
"  Macpherson,"  in  Dictionary  of  National  Biography.) 


62  MACAULAY. 

and  invective.  But  when  he  took  his  pen  in  his  hand,  his  whole 
character  seemed  to  be  changed.  A  hundred  bad  writers  misrep- 
resented him  and  reviled  him ;  but  not  one  of  the  hundred  could 
boast  of  having  been  thought  by  him  worthy  of  a  refutation,  or 
even  of  a  retort.  The  Kenricks,  Campbells,  MacNicols,  and  Hen- 
dersons did  their  best  to  annoy  him,  in  the  hope  that  he  would 
give  them  importance  by  answering  them.  But  the  reader  will 
in  vain  search  his  works  for  any  allusion  to  Kenrick  ]  or  Camp- 
bell,2 to  MacNicol3  or  Henderson.4  One  Scotchman,  bent  on 
vindicating  the  fame  of  Scotch  learning,  defied  him  to  the  com- 
bat in  a  detestable  Latin  hexameter— 

"  Maxime,  si  tu  vis,  cupio  contendere  tecum."5 

But  Johnson  took  no  notice  of  the  challenge.  He  had  learned, 
both  from  his  own  observation  and  from  literary  history,  in  which 
he  was  deeply  read,  that  the  place  of  books  in  the  public  esti- 
mation is  fixed,  not  by  what  is  written  about  them,  but  by  what 
is  written  in  them ;  and  that  an  author  whose  works  are  likely 
to  live  is  very  unwise  if  he  stoops  to  wrangle  with  detractors 
whose  works  are  certain  to  die.  He  always  maintained  that 
fame  was  a  shuttlecock,  which  could  be  kept  up  only  by  being 
beaten  back,  as.  well  as  beaten  forward,  and  which  would  soon 
fall  if  there  were  only  one  battledoor.  No  saying  was  oftener  in 
his  mouth  than  that  fine  apothegm  of  Bentley,6  that  no  man  was 
ever  written  down  but  by  himself. 

Unhappily,  a  few  months  after  the  appearance  of  the  "Journey 
to  the  Hebrides,"  Johnson  did  what  none  of  his  envious  assailants 

1  Dr.  William  Kenrick  (died,  1779),  a  vulgar  satirist,  who  savagely  attacked 
Johnson's  Shakespeare. 

2  Archibald  Campbell,  a  Scotch  purser  in  the  navy,  who  satirized  John- 
son's style  under  the  title  of  Lexiphanes. 

3  Rev.  Donald  MacNicol,  who  published  a  scurrilous  volume  on  Johnson's 
Journey  to  the  Hebrides. 

4  Dr.  Andrew  Henderson,  who  likewise  criticised  Johnson's  Journey. 

5  "  I  desire  especially,  if  you  wish,  to  contend  with  you." 

6  Richard  Bentley  (1662-1742),  famous  classical  scholar. 


THE  LIFE    OF  SAMUEL   JOHNSON.  63 

could  have  done,  and  to  a  certain  extent  succeeded  in  writing 
himself  down.  The  disputes  between  England  and  her  American 
Colonies  had  reached  a  point  at  which  no  amicable  adjustment 
was  possible.  Civil  war  was  evidently  impending ;  and  the  min- 
isters seem  to  have  thought  that  the  eloquence  of  Johnson  might 
with  advantage  be  employed  to  inflame  the  nation  against  the 
opposition  here,  and  against  the  rebels  beyond  the  Atlantic.  He 
had  already  written  two  or  three  tracts  in  defense  of  the  foreign 
and  domestic  policy  of  the  government ;  and  those  tracts,  though 
hardly  worthy  of  him,  were  much  superior  to  the  crowd  of 
pamphlets  which  lay  on  the  counters  of  Almon  x  and  Stockdale. 
But  his  "Taxation  no  Tyranny"2  was  a  pitiable  failure.  The 
very  title  was  a  silly  phrase,  which  can  have  been  recommended 
to  his  choice  by  nothing  but  a  jingling  alliteration  which  he  ought 
to  have  despised.  The  arguments  were  such  as  boys  use  in 
debating  societies.  The  pleasantry  was  as  awkward  as  the  gam- 
bols of  a  hippopotamus.  Even  Boswell  was  forced  to  own  that 
in  this  unfortunate  piece  he  could  detect  no  trace  of  his  master's 
powers.  The  general  opinion  was,  that  the  strong  faculties  which 
had  produced  the  Dictionary  and  the  "  Rambler "  were  begin- 
ning to  feel  the  effect  of  time  and  of  disease,  and  that  the  old 
man  would  best  consult  his  credit  by  writing  no  more. 

But  this  was  a  great  mistake.  Johnson  had  failed,  not  because 
his  mind  was  less  vigorous  than  when  he  wrote  "  Rasselas  "  in 
the  evenings  of  a  week,  but  because  he  had  foolishly  chosen, 
or  suffered  others  to  choose  for  him,  a  subject  such  as  he  would 
at  no  time  have  been  competent  to  treat.  He  was  in  no  sense  a 
statesman.  He  never  willingly  read,  or  thought,  or  talked  about, 
affairs  of  state.  He  loved  biography,  literary  history,  the  history 
of  manners  ;  but  political  history  was  positively  distasteful  to  him. 
The  question  at  issue  between  the  Colonies  and  the  mother 
country  was  a  question  about  which  he  had  really  nothing  to  say. 

1  John  Almon  (1737-1805),  bookseller  and  journalist;  friend  of  John 
Wilkes. 

2  Published  in  1775. 


64  MA  CA  ULA  Y. 

He  failed,  therefore,  as  the  greatest  men  must  fail  when  they 
attempt  to  do  that  for  which  they  are  unfit ;  as  Burke  would  have 
failed  if  Burke  had  tried  to  write  comedies  like  those  of  Sheri- 
dan;1 as  Reynolds  would  have  failed  if  Reynolds  had  tried  to 
paint  landscapes  like  those  of  Wilson.2  Happily,  Johnson  soon 
had  an  opportunity  of  proving  most  signally  that  his  failure  was 
not  to  be  ascribed  to  intellectual  decay. 

On  Easter  Eve,  1777,  some  persons,  deputed  by  a  meeting 
which  consisted  of  forty  of  the  first  booksellers  ;n  London,  called 
upon  him.  Though  he  had  some  scruples  about  doing  business 
at  that  season,  he  received  his  visitors  with  much  civility.  They 
came  to  inform  him  that  a  new  edition  of  the  English  poets,  from 
Cowley  downwards,  was  in  contemplation,  and  to  ask  him  to 
furnish  short  biographical  prefaces.  He  readily  undertook  the 
task,  a  task  for  which  he  was  preeminently  qualified.  His  knowl- 
edge of  the  literary  history  of  England  since  the  Restoration  was 
unrivaled.  That  knowledge  he  had  derived  partly  from  books, 
and  partly  from  sources  which  had  long  been  closed :  from  old 
Grub  Street  traditions ;  from  the  talk  of  forgotten  poetasters  and 
pamphleteers  who  had  long  been  lying  in  parish  vaults  ;  from  the 
recollections  of  such  men  as  Gilbert  Walmesley,  who  had  con- 
versed with  the  wits  of  Button  j  3  Cibber,4  who  had  mutilated  the 
plays  of  two  generations  of  dramatists ;  Orrery,5  who  had  been 
admitted  to  the  society  of  Swift ;  G  and  Savage,7  who  had  ren- 
dered services  of  no  very  honorable  kind  to  Pope.     The  biog- 

1  Richard  Brinsley  Butler  Sheridan  (1751-1816),  noted  dramatist  and 
Whig  politician  ;   author  of  School  for  Scandal. 

2  Richard  Wilson  (1714-82),  one  of  the  original  members  of  the  Royal 
Academy. 

3  A  famous  coffeehouse  in  Queen  Anne's  time,  frequented  by  Addison 
and  his  associates. 

4  Colley  Cibber  (1671-1757),  actor  and  dramatist ;  poet  laureate.  Among 
the  plays  he  altered  were  Richard  III.  and  King  Lear. 

5  John  Boyle  (1707-62),  Earl  of  Orrery;  author  of  a  Life  of  Swift. 

6  Jonathan  Swift  (1667-1745),  greatest  of  English  satirists  ;  author  of  Tale 
of  a  Tub  and  Gulliver's  Travels.  7  See  Note  4,  p.  35. 


THE   LIFE    OF  SAMUEL   JOHNSON.  65 

rapher,  therefore,  sat  down  to  his  task  with  a  mind  full  of 
matter.  He  had  at  first  intended  to  give  only  a  paragraph  to 
every  minor  poet,  and  only  four  or  five  pages  to  the  greatest 
name.  But  the  flood  of  anecdote  and  criticism  overflowed  the 
narrow  channel.  The  work,  which  was  originally  meant  to  consist 
only  of  a  few  sheets,  swelled  into  ten  volumes, — small  volumes, 
it  is  true,  and  not  closely  printed.  The  first  four  appeared  in 
1779,  the  remaining  six  in  1781. 

The  "  Lives  of  the  Poets  "  are,  on  the  whole,  the  best  of  John-' 
son's  works.  The  narratives  are  as  entertaining  as  any  novel. 
The  remarks  on  life  and  on  human  nature  are  eminently  shrewd 
and  profound.  The  criticisms  are  often  excellent,  and,  even 
when  grossly  and  provokingly  unjust,  well  deserve  to  be  studied  ; 
for,  however  erroneous  they  may  be,  they  are  never  silly.  They 
are  the  judgments  of  a  mind  trammeled  by  prejudice,  and  defi- 
cient in  sensibility,  but  vigorous  and  acute.  They,  therefore, 
generally  contain  a  portion  of  valuable  truth  which  deserves  to 
be  separated  from  the  alloy ;  and  at  the  very  worst  they  mean 
something, — a  praise  to  which  much  of  what  is  called  criticism 
in  our  time  has  no  pretensions. 

Savage's  "  Life  "  Johnson  reprinted  nearly  as  it  had  appeared 
in  1744.  Whoever,  after  reading  that  life,  will  turn  to  the  other 
lives,  will  be  struck  by  the  difference  of  style.  Since  Johnson  had 
been  at  ease  in  his  circumstances,  he  had  written  little  and  had 
talked  much.  When,  therefore,  he,  after  the  lapse  of  years, 
resumed  his  pen,  the  mannerism  which  he  had  contracted  while 
he  was  in  the  constant  habit  of  elaborate  composition  was  less 
perceptible  than  formerly ;  and  his  diction  frequently  had  a  col- 
loquial ease  which  it  had  formerly  wanted.  The  improvement 
may  be  discerned  by  a  skillful  critic  in  the  "Journey  to  the 
Hebrides;"  and  in  the  "Lives  of  the  Poets"  is  so  obvious,  that 
it  cannot  escape  the  notice  of  the  most  careless  reader. 

Among   the  lives  the  best   are,   perhaps,  those   of   Cowley,1 

1  Abraham  Cowley  (1618-67),  essayist  and  poet  of  the  so-called  "meta- 
physical school,"  deemed  in  his  day  a  better  poet  than  Milton. 

5 


66  MACAULAY. 

Dryden,1  and  Pope.  The  very  worst  is,  beyond  all  doubt,  that 
of  Gray.2 

This  great  work  at  once  became  popular.  There  was,  indeed, 
much  just  and  much  unjust  censure;  but  even  those  who  were 
loudest  in  blame  were  attracted  by  the  book  in  spite  of  them- 
selves. Malone  3  computed  the  gains  of  the  publishers  at  five  or 
six  thousand  pounds.  But  the  writer  was  very  poorly  remu- 
nerated. Intending  at  first  to  write  very  short  prefaces,  he  had 
stipulated  for  only  two  hundred  guineas.  The  booksellers,  when 
they  saw  how  far  his  performance  had  surpassed  his  promise, 
added  only  another  hundred.  Indeed,  Johnson,  though  he  did 
not  despise,  or  affect  to  despise,  money,  and  though  his  strong 
sense  and  long  experience  ought  to  have  qualified  him  to  protect 
his  own  interests,  seems  to  have  been  singularly  unskillful  and 
unlucky  in  his  literary  bargains.  He  was  generally  reputed  the 
first  English  writer  of  his  time ;  yet  several  writers  of  his  time 
sold  their  copyrights  for  sums  such  as  he  never  ventured  to  ask. 
To  give  a  single  instance,  Robertson  4  received  four  thousand  five 
hundred  pounds  for  the  "  History  of  Charles  V.  ;"5  and  it  is  no 
disrespect  to  the  memory  of  Robertson  to  say  that  the  "  History 
of  Charles  V."  is  both  a  less  valuable  and  a  less  amusing  book 
than  the  "  Lives  of  the  Poets." 

Johnson  was  now  in  his  seventy-second  year.  The  infirmities 
of  age  were  coining  fast  upon  him.  That  inevitable  event  of 
which  he  never  thought  without  horror  was  brought  near  to  him  ; 
and  his  whole  life  was  darkened  by  the  shadow  of  death.  He 
had  often  to  pay  the  cruel  price  of  longevity.  Every  year  he 
lost  what  could  never  be  replaced.     The  strange  dependents  to 

1  John  Dryden  (1631-1700),  poet  and  satirist;  author  of  Absalom  and 
Achitophel  and  of  Hind  and  Panther. 

2  Thomas  Gray  (1716-71),  author  of  the  poems  the  Bard  and  the  Elegy; 
one  of  the  most  learned  men  of  his  time. 

3  Edmund  Malone  (1741-1812),  scholar  and  Shakespearean  critic.  He 
edited  several  editions  of  Boswell's  Johnson. 

'    Dr.  William  Robertson  ( 1 721-93),  a  Scottish  historian. 

5  Emperor  Charles  V.  (1500-58)  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire. 


77/ E   LIFE    OF  SAMUEL   JOHNSON.  67 

whom  he  had  given  shelter,  and  to  whom,  in  spite  of  their  faults, 
he  was  strongly  attached  by  habit,  dropped  off  one  by  one ;  and 
in  the  silence  of  his  home  he  regretted  even  the  noise  of  their 
scolding  matches.  The  kind  and  generous  Thrale  was  no  more  ; 
and  it  would  have  been  well  if  his  wife  had  been  laid  beside 
him.  But  she  survived  to  be  the  laughingstock  of  those  who 
had  envied  her,  and  to  draw,  from  the  eyes  of  the  old  man  who 
had  loved  her  beyond  anything  in  the  world,  tears  far  more  bit- 
ter than  he  would  have  shed  over  her  grave.  With  some  esti- 
mable and  many  agreeable  qualities,  she  was  not  made  to  be 
independent.  The  control  of  a  mind  more  steadfast  than  her  own 
was  necessary  to  her  respectability.  While  she  was  restrained 
by  her  husband,  —  a  man  of  sense  and  firmness,  indulgent  to  her 
taste  in  trifles,  but  always  the  undisputed  master  of  his  house, 
—  her  worst  offenses  had  been  impertinent  jokes,  white  lies, 
and  short  fits  of  pettishness  ending  in  sunny  good  humor.  But 
he  was  gone ;  and  she  was  left  an  opulent  widow  of  forty,  with 
strong  sensibility,  volatile  fancy,  and  slender  judgment.  She 
soon  fell  in  love  with  a  music  master  '  from  Brescia,1'  in  whom 
nobody  but  herself  could  discover  anything  to  admire.  Her 
pride,  and  perhaps  some  better  feelings,  struggled  hard  against 
this  degrading  passion;  but  the  struggle  irritated  her  nerves, 
soured  her  temper,  and  at  length  endangered  her  health.  Con- 
scious that  her  choice  was  one  which  Johnson  could  not  approve, 
she  became  desirous  to  escape  from  his  inspection.  Her  manner 
towards  him  changed.  She  was  sometimes  cold,  and  sometimes 
petulant.  She  did  not  conceal  her  joy  when  he  left  Streatham  ; 
she  never  pressed  him  to  return;  and  if  he  came  unbidden  she 
received  him  in  a  manner  which  convinced  him  that  he  was  no 
longer  a  welcome  guest.  He  took  the  very  intelligible  hints 
which  she  gave.  He  read,  for  the  last  time,  a  chapter  of  the 
Greek  Testament  in  the  library  which  had  been  formed  by  him- 
self.     In  a  solemn  and  tender  prayer,  he  commended  the  house 

1    Piozzi  (see  note,  p.  57). 

-  Capital  of  province  "I  Brescia,  Italy,  at  tin-  fool  <>f  the  Alps. 


68  MA  CAUL  AY. 

and  its  inmates  to  the  Divine  protection,  and  with  emotions 
which  choked  his  voice,  and  convulsed  his  powerful  frame,  left 
forever  that  beloved  home  for  the  gloomy  and  desolate  house 
behind  Fleet  Street,  where  the  few  and  evil  days  which  still 
remained  to  him  were  to  run  out.  Here,  in  June,  1783,  he  had 
a  paralytic  stroke,  from  which,  however,  he  recovered,  and  which 
does  not  appear  to  have  at  all  impaired  his  intellectual  faculties. 
But  other  maladies  came  thick  upon  him.  His  asthma  tor- 
mented him  day  and  night.  Dropsical  symptoms  made  their  ap- 
pearance. While  sinking  under  a  complication  of  diseases,  he 
heard  that  the  woman  whose  friendship  had  been  the  chief  hap- 
piness of  sixteen  years  of  his  life  had  married  an  Italian  fiddler,1 
that  all  London  was  crying  shame  upon  her,  and  that  the  news- 
papers and  magazines  were  filled  with  allusions  to  the  Ephesian 
matron  2  and  the  two  pictures  in  "  Hamlet."  :{  He  vehemently  said 
that  he  would  try  to  forget  her  existence.  He  never  uttered  her 
name.  Every  memorial  of  her  which  met  his  eye  he  flung  into 
the  fire.  She,  meanwhile,  fled  from  the  laughter  and  hisses  of 
her  countrymen  and  countrywomen  to  a  land  where  she  was  un- 
known, hastened  across  Mount  Cenis,4  and  learned,  while  passing 
a  merry  Christmas  of  concerts  and  lemonade  parties  at  Milan, 
that  the  great  man  with  whose  name  hers  is  inseparably  asso- 
ciated had  ceased  to  exist. 

He  had,  in  spite  of  much  mental  and  much  bodily  affliction, 
clung  vehemently  to  life.  The  feeling  described  in  that  fine  but 
gloomy  paper  which  closes  the  series  of  his  "  Idlers  "  seemed  to 

1  For  a  more  tolerant  opinion  of  Mrs.  Thrale's  conduct,  see  Leslie 
Stephens's  Life  of  Johnson:  "  She  lived  happily  with  Piozzi,  and  never  had 
cause  to  regret  her  marriage." 

2  A  character  in  a  Latin  novel  by  Petronius  (Ail .iter),  who  died  about 
A.D.  66. 

3  The  pictures  of  his  father  and  his  uncle  that  Hamlet  shows  the  Queen  — 

"  Look  here,  upon  this  picture,  and  on  this  ; 
The  counterfeit  presentment  of  two  brothers.'*  — Act  iii.  sc.  4. 

*  A  mountain  pass  in  the  Alps,  6,775  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea. 


THE  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  JOHNSON.  69 

grow  stronger  in  him  as  his  last  hour  drew  near.  He  fancied 
that  he  should  be  able  to  draw  his  breath  more  easily  in  a  south- 
ern climate,  and  would  probably  have  set  out  for  Rome  and 
Naples,  but  for  his  fear  of  the  expense  of  the  journey.  That  ex- 
pense, indeed,  he  had  the  means  of  defraying ;  for  he  had  laid  up 
about  two  thousand  pounds,  the  fruit  of  labors  which  had  made 
the  fortune  of  several  publishers.  But  he  was  unwilling  to  break 
in  upon  this  hoard,  and  he  seems  to  have  wished  even  to  keep  its 
existence  a  secret.  Some  of  his  friends  hoped  that  the  govern- 
ment might  be  induced  to  increase  his  pension  to  six  hundred 
pounds  a  year ;  but  this  hope  was  disappointed,  and  he  resolved 
to  stand  one  English  winter  more.  That  winter  was  his  last. 
His  legs  grew  weaker;  his  breath  grew  shorter;  the  fatal  water 
gathered  fast,  in  spite  of  incisions  which  he — courageous  against 
pain,  but  timid  against  death  —  urged  his  surgeons  to  make  deeper 
and  deeper.  Though  the  tender  care  which  had  mitigated  his 
sufferings  during  months  of  sickness  at  Streatham  was  withdrawn, 
he  was  not  left  desolate.  The  ablest  physicians  and  surgeons 
attended  him,  and  refused  to  accept  fees  from  him.  Burke 
parted  from  him  with  deep  emotion.  Windham  1  sat  much  in  the 
sick  room,  arranged  the  pillows,  and  sent  his  own  servant  to 
watch  at  night  by  the  bed.  Frances  Burney,2  whom  the  old  man 
had  cherished  with  fatherly  kindness,  stood  weeping  at  the  door ; 
while  Langton,  whose  piety  eminently  qualified  him  to  be  an 
adviser  and  comforter  at  such  a  time,  received  the  last  pressure 
of  his  friend's  hand  within.  When  at  length  the  moment,  dreaded 
through  so  many  years,  came  close,  the  dark  cloud  passed  away 
from  Johnson's  mind.  His  temper  became  unusually  patient  and 
gentle ;  he  ceased  to  think  with  terror  of  death  and  of  that  which 
lies  beyond  death  ;  and  he  spoke  much  of  the  mercy  of  God 
and  of  the  propitiation  of  Christ.  In  this  serene  frame  of  mind 
he  died  on«the  13th  of  December,  1784.     He  was  laid,  a  week 

1  William  Windham  (1750-1810),  politician  and  parliamentary  orator. 

2  Frances    Burney  (Madame  D'Arblay)   (1752-1S40),  author  of  Evelina 
and  Cecilia  (see  Macaulay's  Madame  D'Arblay). 


jo  MACAULAY. 

later,  in  Westminster  Abbey,1  among  the  eminent  men  of  whom 
he  had  been  the  historian, — Cowley  and  Denham,'-  Dryden  and 
Congreve,3  Gay,  Prior,4  and  Addison. 

Since  his  death,  the  popularity  of  his  works — the  "  Lives  of  the 
Poets,"  and,  perhaps,  the  "Vanity  of  Human  Wishes,"  excepted 
—  has  greatly  diminished.  His  Dictionary  has  been  altered  by 
editors  till  it  can  scarcely  be  called  his.  An  allusion  to  his 
"Rambler"  or  his  "Idler"  is  not  readily  apprehended  in  liter- 
ary circles.  The  fame  even  of  "  Rasselas  "  has  grown  somewhat 
dim.  But,  though  the  celebrity  of  the  writings  may  have  declined, 
the  celebrity  of  the  writer,  strange  to  say,  is  as  great  as  ever. 
Boswell's  book  has  done  for  him  more  than  the  best  of  his  own 
books  could  do.  The  memory  of  other  authors  is  kept  alive  by 
their  works ;  but  the  memory  of  Johnson  keeps  many  of  his 
works  alive.  The  old  philosopher  is  still  among  us  in  the  brown 
coat  with  the  metal  buttons,  and  the  shirt  which  ought  to  be 
at  wash,  blinking,  puffing,  rolling  his  head,  drumming  with  his 
fingers,  tearing  his  meat  like  a  tiger,  and  swallowing  his  tea  in 
oceans.  No  human  being  who  has  been  more  than  seventy 
years  in  the  grave  is  so  well  known  to  us.  And  it  is  but  just  to 
say,  that  our  intimate  acquaintance  with  what  he  would  himself 
have  called  the  anfractuosities  of  his  intellect  and  of  his  temper 
serves  only  to  strengthen  our  conviction  that  he  was  both  a  great 
and  a  good  man. 

1  Westminster  Abbey  (Westminster,  London)  is  famous  as  the  chief 
burial  place  of  England's  distinguished  men.  Poets'  Corner  records  many 
of  the  most  famous  names  in  English  literature. 

2  Sir  John  Denham  (1615-68),  author  of  Cooper's  Hill. 

3  William  Congreve  (1670-1729),  eminent  dramatist;  author  of  Double 
Dealer,  Old  Bachelor,  and  Mourning  Bride. 

4  Matthew  Prior  (1664-1721),  wit,  poet,  and  diplomatist.  With  Montague 
he  wrote  the  City  and  Country  Mouse,  a  parody  on  Dryden's  Hind  and 
Panther.  See  Thackeray's  English  Humorists  (Swift,  Addison,  Steele, 
Congreve,  Prior,  Pope,  and  others). 


Fisher's  Brief  History  of  the  Nations 

AND   OF   THEIR    PROGRESS    IN    CIVILIZATION 

By  GEORGE  PARK  FISHER,  LL.D. 
Professor  in  Yale  University 

Cloth,  12mo,  613  pages,  with  numerous  Illustrations,  Maps,  Tables,  and 
Reproductions  of  Bas-reliefs,  Portraits,  and  Paintings.     Price,  $1 .50 


This  is  an  entirety  new  work  written  expressly  to  meet 
the  demand  for  a  compact  and  acceptable  text-book  on 
General  History  for  high  schools,  academies,  and  private 
schools.  Some  of  the  distinctive  qualities  which  will  com- 
mend this  book  to  teachers  and  students  are  as  follows: 

It  narrates  in  fresh,  vigorous,  and  attractive  style  the 
most  important  facts  of  history  in  their  due  order  and 
connection. 

It  explains  the  nature  of  historical  evidence,  and  records 
only  well  established  judgments  respecting  persons  and 
events. 

It  delineates  the  progress  of  peoples  and  nations  in 
civilization  as  well  as  the  rise  and  succession  of  dynasties. 

It  connects,  in  a  single  chain  of  narration,  events  related 
to  each  other  in  the  contemporary  history  of  different 
nations  and  countries. 

It  gives  special  prominence  to  the  history  of  the 
Mediaeval  and  Modern  Periods,  —  the  eras  of  greatest 
import  to  modern  students. 

It  is  written  from  the  standpoint  of  the  present,  and 
incorporates  the  latest  discoveries  of  historical  explorers 
and  writers. 

It  is  illustrated  by  numerous  colored  maps,  genealog- 
ical tables,  and  artistic  reproductions  of  architecture, 
sculpture,  painting,  and  portraits  of  celebrated  men, 
representing  every  period  of  the  world's  history. 


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Handbook  of  Greek  and  Roman  History 

BY 

GEORGES    CASTEGNIER,  B.S.,  B.L. 

Flexible  Cloth,   12mo,  110  pages.       -         -        Price,  50  cents 


The  purpose  of  this  little  handbook  is  to  assist  the 
student  of  Greek  and  Roman  History  in  reviewing  subjects 
already  studied  in  the  regular  text-books  and  in  preparing 
for  examinations.  It  will  also  be  found  useful  for  general 
readers  who  wish  to  refresh  their  minds  in  regard  to  the 
leading  persons  and  salient  facts  of  ancient  history. 

It  is  in  two  parts,  one  devoted  to  Greek,  and  the  other 
to  Roman  history.  The  names  and  titles  have  been 
selected  with  rare  skill,  and  represent  the  whole  range  of 
classical  history.  They  are  arranged  alphabetically,  and 
are  printed  in  full-face  type,  making  them  easy  to  find. 
The  treatment  of  each  is  concise  and  gives  just  the  in- 
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know  and  remember,  or  have  at  ready  command. 

Its  convenient  form  and  systematic  arrangement 
especially  adapt  it  for  use  as  an  accessory  and  reference 
manual  for  students,  or  as  a  brief  classical  cyclopedia  for 
general  readers. 

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y*  Eclectic   English   Classics. 


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V 


X  ARNOLD'S  SOHRAB  AND  RUSTUM 20  X 

V  BURKE'S  SPEECH  ON  CONCILIATION  ....  20  <JJ 
X  CARLYLE'S  ESSAY  ON  ROBERT  BURNS  ...  20  y 
%           COLERIDGE'S  RIME  OF  THE  ANCIENT  MARINER, .  20 

DEFOE'S  HISTORY  OF  THE  PLAGUE  IN  LONDON,  40  X 

DE  QUINCEY'S  REVOLT  OF  THE  TARTARS    .     .  20 
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£  MACAULAY'S  ESSAY  ON  ADDISO  i 20 

V  MACAULAY'S   LIFE  OF  JOHNSON 20 

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SOUTHEY'S  LIFE  OF  NELSON 40  j? 

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A  , A 


S 


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